Dear Nick and others,

As requested, I am writing to provide clarification about the process the RIPE NCC follows to establish the legitimate holder of PI address space, and to outline how a case may be escalated.

As mentioned earlier, Registration Services is currently in contact with hundreds of potential PI resource holders. For the most part, the more straightforward cases have already been resolved. What is left now are those cases where things are not quite so clear-cut: a resource may have changed hands several times, and there is often no paper trail documenting this. In many cases, these resources have never been announced or have not been announced for a very long time, etc.

Every potential resource holder is given three months to produce documentation that demonstrates the legitimacy of their claim. We sometimes give extensions when we feel that good progress is being made. However, at some point we do have to start the de-registration procedure. From here, the potential resource holder still has an additional 90 days to find the required documentation. 

We explore a number of options to find a satisfactory solution. In cases where all available options have been exhausted but the IPRA feels reasonably certain about the legitimacy of the claim, they may escalate the request to management for a final decision. Similarly, the IPRA may also escalate the matter, either at the request of the other party or following internal procedures if the communication becomes difficult. If no agreement can be reached even after the matter has been escalated, we inform the potential resource holder that they can ask their potential sponsoring LIR to object to our decision via the Arbiters Panel. During arbitration, all ongoing processes are frozen.

You can find out more about the RIPE NCC's Arbitration Process here: 
http://www.ripe.net/lir-services/ncc/legal/arbitration

Finally, I would like to highlight that out of the thousands of resources we have dealt with as part of the 2007-01 project, very few cases that have come this far. In the overwhelming majority of (legitimate) cases, we are able to resolve matters satisfactorily for both parties. Regarding the request that started this thread, please note that we will do our best to resolve this matter with the other party.

Kind regards

Ingrid Wijte
RIPE NCC


On 8/14/13 5:20 PM, Nick Hilliard wrote:
On 14/08/2013 16:08, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:

No, that hasn't happened because the person didn't know about it.

It's the same as dispute resolution everywhere else: if there is an issue
which isn't resolved on the front desk, then you escalate.  The Arbitration
/ dispute resolution process is not as well known as it might be, but it
has existed for donkeys years:

http://www.ripe.net/lir-services/ncc/legal/arbitration


Personally I dislike a policy that requires someone to know innards of RIPE
NCC in order to get reasonable treatment. As far as I can tell, the
hostmaster in question didn't offer these alternatives. 

It sounds like there may be scope for the IPRA team to educate PI holders
on their options, and this might be something that the RIPE NCC management
to think about.  This will end up being fairer for the PI holders, and will
also protect the RIPE NCC from allegations of unfair practice.  Phase three
of 2007-01 will produce difficult cases.

Could someone from the RIPE NCC comment on general procedures surrounding
what they might do in circumstances where there the holdership of the PI
resources is unclear?  And what the escalation options are?

Nick