[arin-ppml] Policy Question(s)

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

Greetings,

I am having some trouble understanding this document:

     https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html

and specifically, Section 8, which deals with transfers.

I'd like to ask how the policy set forth there might or might not comport
with the following scenario...

A corporation was formed in the United States in 1996.  Call it `Company A'.

In July of 1999, Company A received an IPv4 /18 allocation.  Sometime in 2004,
the original company, Company A, was merged into a second corporation...
call it `Company B'...  which was newly created that year.  As a result,
Company B effectively inherited Company A's /18.  Company B is also located
in the United States, in the same state as Company A.

Company B still exists.  It has an active web site and it is taking
orders for T1 lines.  The grand total of all IP address space that Company B
ever had, even in its heyday, was the /18, and a tiny little /29, which
was obtained out of the allocation of another provider.  Because of the
early date of /18 allocation, and the chain of inheritance, my guess is
that most probably, Company B never had to ``justify'' their use of the /18
at all, ever.  (Is that correct?)

Fast forward to October of last year, 2009.  In that month, a brand new
Limited Liability Company (LLC) was formed in the same state as Companies
A and B.  Let's call this `Company C'.  The mailing address for Company C
is the same as that for Company B.

Now, fast forward to today.  Right now, today, ARIN records show the /18
to be registered to Company C.

So I just want to know:  How does a circumstance like this come to exist,
and how does it comport with current policy?

Would it ever have been permissible for Company B to sell, to ``gift'',
or to in any other way transfer, just late last year, its /18 to this
brand new LLC, Company C?

Does it make any difference that Company B and Company C seem to be in
some sense ``sister'' companies, perhaps with a significant overlap of
management and/or ownership?

And even if such a transfer had been allowed... i.e. transfering the /18
from B to C... wouldn't there necessarily have been questions raised at
that time about Company C's _need_ for a whole /18?  I mean after all,
Company C was only formed in October of last year, and it appears that
it has not now, and never has had any other IP resources, other than
the /18 which it quite apparently got from Company B.  (Furtrhermore,
it does appear that ever since the _original_ allocation of the /18,
wasy back in 1999, that sizable allocation may perhaps never have been
``justified'', i.e. to ARIN, in any formal sense.)

I guess my question is:  Can a brand new company, with no history whatsoever,
file papers with the state, to become a legit, LLC, and then waltz in to
ARIN the very next day and get themselves a whole fresh new /18 ?  Can they
do it if the /18 in question is being transferred from a ``sister'' company?
Can they do it without any utilization review or justification whatsoever?
Is such a transfer fully consistant with current policy?


Regards,
rfg