[ppml] ARIN Comment

[Ray Plzak]

On Tuesday, 29 June, I assigned the ARIN General Counsel the task to review
and prepare the necessary filings to either intervene formally or as an
amicus in the case filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey Chancery
Division for Morris County No: MRSC-87-04.  ARIN's interest in reviewing
this dispute was two fold:

a. Determine whether the global and regional policies regarding the use of
Internet Numbering Resources have been violated; and

b. Determine whether the Registration Service Agreements which both the
Plaintiff and the Defendant have signed with ARIN have been violated.

The pleadings in this case have been carefully reviewed by the ARIN General
Counsel.  As a result of that review we have preliminarily determined that
neither the policies nor Registration Service Agreements have been violated.
Therefore we have concluded that it is not appropriate for ARIN to intervene
formally or as an amicus in this case.

The parties to the dispute are the Plaintiff, a company known as University
Communications dba Pegasus Web Technologies, which provides web hosting and
internet access services to customers, and its principal; and the Defendant,
Net Access Corporation, an ISP that supplied number resources, obtained from
ARIN, to the Plaintiff.

ARIN has no interest in the 'who shot John' allegations between Plaintiff
and Defendant regarding claims of breach of contract, breach of duty of good
faith and fair dealing, and etc.

Stripped to its essence, it is clear that Plaintiff no longer wants to do
business in the long run with Defendant, and appears to be following ARIN
and Internet customary procedures to renumber client accounts in a manner
that will permit its internet customers to seamlessly continue their use of
the Internet, whether the number used was originally issued to the
Defendant, then provided to the specific member of the public by the
Plaintiff, or is now being renumbered by the Plaintiff. 

It does take time to renumber, and it appears the real issue in this suit is
Plaintiff's attempt to obtain from the Court what it believes is sufficient
time to accomplish this task. We express no opinion whether the Plaintiff
might have moved faster in this regard and avoided this dispute, because
those facts are not fully known to us. We have carefully reviewed the
arguments provided and do not believe the arguments by the Plaintiff sought
any relief inconstant with obtaining time to renumber, consistent with
ARIN's and the Internet community's normal expectations. That is also the
overall thrust of the Order to Show Cause With Temporary Restraints issued
by the Court.

There is language in that Order that if taken out of context of the
arguments and spirit of the Order might have raised some concern.  For
example the Order does not clearly expire in several months consistent with
the requested time to renumber. However, we have concluded it is not a
problem when read in context and ARIN can at any point raise in any Court
its objection to an open ended requirement that numbers supplied by business
A to business B must be maintained in perpetuity and not renumbered.

Therefore, we have concluded that the recent intense discussion was fueled
by a characterization of the litigation by one of the parties in a manner
that was intended to and did raise community concerns, that we do not agree
are implicated at this time. We will continue to monitor this and other
litigation that might genuinely raise these concerns, and will alert the
community to such cases when we find them so courts can be educated about
these policies.

Raymond A. Plzak
President & CEO
ARIN