[address-policy-wg] 2016-03 New Policy Proposal (Locking Down the Final /8 Policy)

Dear Sasha, all,

The concern you raise was addressed back in 2009, when the RIPE
community was discussing three different last /8 policy proposals (the
proposals 2008-06, 2009-3 and 2009-04). All three policy proposals
allowed one single /22 allocation per LIR.

Back then the RIPE NCC received legal advice from external legal
advisers with an expertise in EU Competition Law. The advise was based
on the assumption that each new LIR would receive no more than a single
/22. The RIPE NCC had shared this legal advise with the RIPE community
and has presented on it at RIPE 59 in Lisbon:
https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/address-policy-wg/2009-October/004743.html
https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/address-policy-wg/attachments/20091006/c9513ab7/attachment.pdf
http://ripe59.ripe.net/presentations/pawlik-final-shalsh-8.pdf

The outcome of the advise was the following:

"The proposed final /8 policies are likely to comply with the conditions
of article 81(3) EC: they contribute to optimising distribution and/or
to promoting technical progress; in so doing, they benefit consumers;
they do not appear to impose restrictions which are not indispensable to
the attainment of their objective of optimising the usage of the IPv4
unallocated pool; and they do not eliminate competition in respect of
the IPv4 unallocated pool.
[...]
For future reference, [...] any final /8 policy adopted by the RIPE
Community and implemented by RIPE NCC should:
(i) continue to be adopted by means of the bottom-up, consensus driven
open policy development process of the RIPE Community;
(ii) be as open as possible (i.e., involve as many LIRs as possible,
which is the case for the currently proposed policies); and
(iii) be applied in a clear non-discriminatory manner, and third parties
(new LIRs) should have fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory access."

I would like to highlight that since 2009 article 81(3) has been
renumbered to 101(3) of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European
Union, but the content remains the same:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:12008E101

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Athina Fragkouli
Head of Legal
RIPE NCC


> Subject: 	Re: [address-policy-wg] 2016-03 New Policy Proposal (Locking
> Down the Final /8 Policy)
> Date: 	Tue, 17 May 2016 14:44:14 +0100
> From: 	Sascha Luck [ml] <apwg at c4inet.net>
> To: 	address-policy-wg at ripe.net
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 02:05:26PM +0200, Marco Schmidt wrote:
>>A new RIPE Policy proposal 2016-03, "Locking Down the Final /8 Policy"
>>is now available for discussion.
>>
>>The goal of this proposal is to limit IPv4 from the remaining address pool
>>to one /22 per LIR (regardless of how it was received).
>>These “final /22” allocations will receive a separate status with 
>>several restrictions:
>>
>>-    These allocation are not transferrable
>>-    LIRs may only retain one final /22 following a merger or acquisition
>>-    Sub-allocations are not possible
>>-    Reverse delegation authority can not delegated to another party
> 
> I would like to see a statement from NCC Legal on the legality of
> any of these proposals with particular emphasis on EU "barrier to
> entry" legislation.
> 
> rgds,
> Sascha Luck
> 
> 
> 
>