[address-policy-wg] 2013-03 New Draft Document and Impact Analysis Published (No Need - Post-Depletion Reality Adjustment and Clean up)

On 5 Aug 2013, at 12:24, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

> They [NCC's lawyers? - JR] need to explain  
> a) whether there is any REAL litigation in which the existence of needs assessment has actually shielded RIPE-NCC from a claim;
> b) how the use of needs assessments make any less likely claims made purely for "publicity" purposes; 
> c) why RIPE-NCC's involvement in allocations of a highly scarce and increasingly contested resource via needs assessment wouldn't make it _more_ likely to be entangled in litigation

Not quite.

None of us here are practising lawyers AFAIK, far less lawyers who understand Dutch/EU law on this particular topic. It would be wise to defer to the experts -- presumably the NCC engaged a law firm who know this field -- instead of continuing our amateur speculations.

If further clarifications and explanations are needed, I suggest we start at the beginning by asking the NCC to publish the brief given to its legal advisers and their response. This way we will know if the right questions were asked at the outset. Everyone can then choose to hire their own lawyers to advise on the correctness and completeness of the reply. Or do some research of their own in a law library, assuming people do that sort of thing these days. Or we could just take the advice of the NCC's lawyers on trust: that's what they get paid to do after all.

I have no idea if the things on your wish list above are necessary or sufficient to address the issues (excuse the pun). For this non-lawyer, they do seem to be putting the cart before the horse.