Reassignment of address space between organisations or between different autonomous parts of an organisation needs the approval of an Internet registry. One indication that such a reassignment is happening is that the organisation of the administrative contact changes. In general there is no problem with such reassignments as long as the address space will be used for the purpose(s) for which it was already assigned. Also there is no problem if a similar amount of address space would have been assigned for the new purpose. As with original assignments local registries will be in charge of processing this. Once the threshold for a second opinion (13 bits == 32Cs) has been reached however it is strongly advised to consult the RIPE NCC. For reassignment of address space of 16 bits or more (class B) consulting the RIPE NCC is mandatory. The reason for this is to prevent a black market in IP addresses which circumvents the review procedures which provide fair address space allocation and which we all work very hard to provide. In my opinion this is no new policy but just a logical consequence of the agreed policies we use. Comments to the list welcome. Questions to me please. Daniel Karrenberg