[address-policy-wg] 2015-04 New Version and Impact Analysis Published (RIPE Resource Transfer Policies)

> Since there were many discussions and yes, I've made the mistake to write
> in a different topic about the 2015-04, I want to state clearly that I
> oppose this policy.
>
> Again, if it would do what it's goal is, then it would be perfect. But it
> doesn't. It brings up important changes which are commented by people with
> no experience in mergers and acquisitions.
>
> While working for RCS&RDS I have seen many takovers and acquisitions and I
> know how the process goes. It's not always easy and definitely complicated.

This basically says "I know this process, you don't, I won't tell
you the details, instead trust me!"

I would say that I would completely understand if this doesn't
carry any weight with the majority of the participants here, and
is probably unlikely to sway opinion in your favour.

> Why do we need to put more stones in front of the wagon? An acquisition is
> not just signing a transfer agreement. For regular transfers it's ok to
> have a 24 months hold period, but asimilating a regular transfer with a
> company acquisition is wrong.  Buying a company needs to be documented with
> official, state issued, documents.  That is if I prove that I legally
> acquired a company, why would you think that it's something fishy and the
> purpose was to hide a simple transfer of IPs?  The two are nowhere near to
> be compared. The acquisition process takes time and money which represents
> already enough reasons not to mask a transfer this way.

My guess: because there is a widespread perception (right or wrong)
that the mergers and aquisitions procedure has been abused (in the
past?) to violate the intention of the "last /8" policy.  The ease
with which companies can be formed in some jurisdictions does not
provide what's seen as a sufficient push-back against abusing this
avenue of forming companies solely for the purpose of getting a /22
out of the last /8 with the (not so well hidden) intention of simply
merging this company with another once the resource has been issued,
and then transferring the resource out of the merged company.

Regards,

- Håvard