[arin-ppml] A Redefinition of IPv4 Need post ARIN run-out (was:Re:Against 2013-4)

[Mike Burns]

I think ARIN should request some attestation from a corporate officer that 
the corporation was not created or utilized in any attempt to evade the cap.
We are talking transactions in the multiple millions of dollars.
There have been very, very few of these to date.
I believe that any attempt to end run this cap would stick out like a sore 
thumb, and the attestation would be disincentive enough.
But I would be interested in hearing if this issue of hidden linkages has 
been a problem for ARIN, or if staff felt that there is a real danger that 
multiple hiddenly-linked entities would conspire successfully to the point 
they could corner the market or hoard effectively to the point that price 
and availability would change.

ARIN must already have staff procedures in place to detect linked entities 
when they are evaluating additional allocation requests from the free pool.
They can just apply these procedures and language to the determination of 
linkage in the context of transfers under the cap.

The argument is that current policy is causing problems in the delivery of 
small blocks in some cases.
You identified the issue yourself with the question about /24 availability.
This is a real cost, as is the cost to accuracy of Whois that results from 
the retention of needs tests for all transfers.

The linked shell company scam is a potential problem that I believe we can 
identify and deal with should the potential materialize.
The other problems are real and present today.

Regards,
Mike



-----Original Message----- 
From: William Herrin
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2013 10:55 AM
To: Mike Burns
Cc: Steven Ryerse ; Brandon Ross ; ARIN PPML
Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] A Redefinition of IPv4 Need post ARIN run-out 
(was:Re:Against 2013-4)

On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 10:25 AM, Mike Burns <mike at iptrading.com> wrote:
> At least at this point in time, the number of transfers is relatively low,
> the block sizes also, and  I think the staff at the RIRs would certainly
> detect attempts to evade the needs test through transfers to linked shell
> corporations.

Hi Mike,

That poses a practical problem. When is a legal entity linked? Even
the courts struggle with determining whether one legal entity is
operating under control of another, and that's after subpoenas,
discovery and comparable activities that you propose ARIN not be
allowed to evaluate for small transfers.

Are they linked if one is a wholly owned subsidiary? Even if they're
in completely different businesses? What if neither is a subsidiary of
the other but they have the same owners? Is ARIN even allowed to ask
who the private owners are? What if one company is owned by Joe Smith
and the other by Bob Jones, but Smith is operating under contract to
Jones for address management services?

Even if ARIN can manage to detect the behavior, they have to follow
policy with specificity and consistency lest they create big legal
troubles for themselves. How do you match a policy statement to that
morass without either creating large loopholes or stepping back to a
level of abstraction which isn't actionable?


A few years ago the BoT tried to tackle the linked-organizations
problem and got smacked down hard. It may be intractable, obstructing
any policy which depends on it being solvable.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004