[arin-ppml] Change of Use and ARIN (was: Re: AFRINIC And The Stability Of The Internet Number Registry System)

[John Curran]

On 7 Sep 2021, at 1:46 PM, Mike Burns <mike at iptrading.com<mailto:mike at iptrading.com>> wrote:

From my perspective as a bidder against Microsoft in that Nortel auction, ARIN transfer policies were completely ignored until the auction winner was announced. The proposed sale agreements we were using in our bidding disregarded any transfer policies at all.

Mike -

We’ve been through this before, but again – the sales agreements that you were proposed were not the agreements that were ultimately approved by the court –

As initially proposed, the sale sought recognition of the IP addresses as property and did not recognize ARIN’s inherent role with respect to IP address management. ARIN intervened in the bankruptcy sale.  Microsoft and the Nortel estate ultimately voluntarily agreed to modify the transaction consistent with ARIN's right to review and approve the transaction following ARIN's established policy.  Specifically,  the parties modified the transfer agreement to be a transfer of rights and interests in the address blocks, and called for a RSA contract between ARIN and Microsoft. After ARIN’s investigation confirmed Microsoft's need for the numbers and found that the transfer complied with established policy, ARIN assented and permitted the transfer to proceed.   (Nortel Networks Inc. et al., No. 09-10138 (KG), Docket # 5253 (D. Del. Apr. 13, 2011).

It's true that it was the first true public IPv4 sale, and was seminal in that regard.

We did many transfers before that time (i.e. 2009 and 2010) as a result of having an approved transfer policy – I do not know if any of those were “public sales” or part of “the transfer market" by your definition, but they definitely were transfers.

It's a disingenuous to say that ARIN transfer policy drove the market, I think that's cart-before-the-horse revisionism.

Agreed, and I would not say such…   what I pointed out to Michel is that _transfers_ were not “set in motion” by the Nortel case –  We were already doing them years earlier as it was first enabled by the adoption of the transfer policy in the ARIN region.

Thanks,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers

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