Even hiring a big lawyer would be highly unlikely to recover any costs. It would undermine one the main DRS advantages, or even shift it more towards a Court if costs were to be recovered, and away from Nominet UK.
Looking back, it was considered that when Benjamin Cohen (then CyberBritain Group) went to the High Court in summer 2005 on his ill-fated attempt to request a judicial review of Nominet, he lost. Yes, in the end, Apple Inc. did retain the itunes.co.uk domain name, but the judge stated that CyberBritain could have used the appeal process which forms part of Nominet's dispute resolution (DRS) procedure. Did this 'rubber stamp' the DRS structure in the eyes of a court? To a large degree, yes, which isn’t so much of a victory for Nominet as one might at first consider. Quite simply, there is a greater onus on Nominet to get their DRS decisions right.
Nominet’s then company solicitor Ed Phillips said
"We always said you can't go running off to court before exhausting the process you are complaining about. And a judicial review is wrong for this anyway - that is for complaining about government decisions - and we're not a government body."
So, in effect, before any court proceedings are started by way of a claim on a domain, the High Court at least supported the requirement to use the DRS, with includes its zero cost recovery principle.
Apple had reportedly first threatened CyberBritain with Court action, but wisely chose Nominet’s DRS instead (£750+VAT), fundamentally on the basis on its contractual rights stemming from its trademarks filed 24th October 2000, two weeks before the registration of itunes.co.uk, see:
TM No. E1917012
TM No. 2249936
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm/t-find/t-find-number.htm
As Nominet UK is a limited company, Cohen could have considered taking them to Court on a legal or contractual matter (but not consumer rights, as CyberBritain Group were then a limited company, now dissolved) if they felt such arguments had legal merit. The judicial review request was the wrong approach, and the resulting comment by the judge suggested that CyberBritain should have at least exercised the option for a reply (second) DRS, which would have cost £3,000+VAT.
Putting aside the ‘abuse’ element, Nominet UK’s DRS framework is very much built around contractual rights, which is why Apple’s choice of instigating the first DRS was a strategically sound move, meaning that Claire Milne had no option but to consider Apple’s contractual rights (on this occasion, trademark rights), and the fact that they preceded any possible rights CyberBritain had by two weeks.