Controversial domain name registrar TotalNIC has lost its accreditation after it failed to pay the costs ordered from its court loss to the .au Domain Administration (auDA).

Last December, TotalNIC's holding company, Capital Networks, appealed to the full Federal Court against a decision that allowed auDA to request documents on its business operations.

AuDA had requested the documents following complaints from TotalNIC customers around the world that gTLD domains could not be transferred from the registrar, and were "locked".

Capital lost its appeal, and the court awarded costs to auDA.

However, Capital had failed to pay any of the agreed instalments of the costs, auDA said this week.

As Capital could not demonstrate its solvency, its accreditation as a registrar was suspended, auDA said.

AuDA will become the temporary registrar of Capital's .au customers, and said it would contact them soon.