The "Coalition for ICANN Transparency" (CFIT) -- a not utterly transparent organization with an excellent and expensive law firm -- has not only filed an anti-trust complaint against ICANN and Verisign (see the press release), but they have made the following highly significant threat,

In addition to these injunctions, CFIT is alerting the U.S. Department of Justice of the significant anticompetitive issues the proposed .com Registry agreement would provoke. We are filing a preliminary complaint with the European Commission detailing similar issues.

I gather, via hearsay, that CFIT is bankrolled in substantial part by Momentous.ca Corp, a Canadian domain registrar, and that it also has support (at least moral if not material) from Go Daddy Software Inc and Network Solutions (the two largest registrars).

History shows that ICANN bows to threats. Expect some bowinig in due course.