In effect, this proposal enables a market for buying and selling IP address blocks. RIPE is a member of the NRO. According to the NRO factsheet: http://www.nro.net/docs/nro-factsheet/nro_technical-sheet.pdf IP addresses are not owned as property. ... When a consumer no longer requires the use of the IP address space, it is returned to the LIR or ISP. It would be very hypocritical if RIPE allowed LIRs to treat address blocks as property between themselves while at the same time forbidding their customers to treat address blocks as property. I wonder if this would be considered a cartel under the EU treaties since the discussions within RIPE are practically invisible to the companies who are customers of LIRs. Do we really want RIPE to move towards pirate capitalism while North America explicitly outlaws such transfers? http://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#eight --Michael Dillon P.S. What is a cartel? It is an illegal secret agreement concluded between competitors who in coordination fix or increase their prices, restrict supply by limiting their sales or their production capacities, and/or divide up their markets or consumers. (quoted from http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/cartels/overview/index_en.cfm )