Dear Maxim, all,

Thank you for your email. 

As a membership association legally-based in the Netherlands, the RIPE NCC will only comply with court orders or other legally-enforceable orders under Dutch law. 

The RIPE NCC is in principle subject to Dutch and EU legislation. When we receive a request from a member or resource holder, we perform due diligence checks to verify the legality of the request and accompanying documentation. We also perform checks on an ongoing basis after the request has been approved as part of our audit activities. Examples of this can be found in the RIPE NCC procedural documents ‘Due Diligence for the Quality of the RIPE NCC Registration Data [1]’, ‘Transfer of Internet Number Resources and Change of a Member’s Official Legal Name [2]’, and ‘RIPE NCC Audit Activity [3]’.

Due diligence checks may take into account legislation that is applicable to the party submitting the request (or the parties involved in the request). We perform these checks to protect the legitimate holder of the resources and to ensure the accuracy of the Internet number resource registry. 

The RIPE NCC can neither recognise nor deny one state’s authority over a region. According to the RIPE NCC procedural document ‘Due Diligence for the Quality of the RIPE NCC Registration Data [1]’, if a party is located in an area claimed by two or more widely recognised states, the RIPE NCC may accept proof of establishment issued by whichever national authority the signing party chooses. Accordingly, we may evaluate the impact of local legislation or authorities’ decisions on occupied areas on a case by case basis. 

Regarding the last part of your email, it is impossible to provide a comprehensive list of cases that constitute an exception, as we cannot predict all possible scenarios and the details of specific cases may differ. Discussing potential cases in general is problematic because it can easily lead to incorrect assumptions about our procedures. All of our decisions in this context will be consistent and seek to achieve the goals of the policy. 

Regards,

Athina Fragkouli
Chief Legal Officer
RIPE NCC


[1] Due Diligence for the Quality of the RIPE NCC Registration Data: 
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-791 

[2] Transfer of Internet Number Resources and Change of a Member’s Official Legal Name
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-758  

[3] RIPE NCC Audit Activity
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-694  





Subject: [ncc-services-wg] Voluntary Transfer Lock V2
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 08:01:52 +0300
From: Максим Смелянец <maxim.smelyanets3@gmail.com>
To: ncc-services-wg@ripe.net


Hello for everyone!

In general I agree with the new policy text, thanks for all your efforts and work.

But I also have some questions and wishes.

There are some notices in the Impact Analysis as «There might be situations where the RIPE NCC cannot enforce the Lock. If the RIPE NCC receives a legally binding decision/order related to Internet number resources under a Lock, the RIPE NCC will have to comply with the order. The RIPE NCC might also not be able to enforce the Lock if it is against any applicable laws or regulations». Can you concretize what does it mean «binding decision/order»? And when you write about the «any applicable lows and regulations» - what exactly it meant by this? The same applies to the text of the policy itself in the paragraph Implementation Choices when you wrote about restrictions from any applicable laws or regulations. It is not clear what applicable lows do you mean. Because for example for Ukrainian holders it can be read as you can apply also low of occupying authorities.

And my wish is to clarify all exceptions of the inability to enforce the lock and provide a comprehensive list of cases that constitute an exception, or provide criteria for determining the relevant situations in further accompanying documents or in the final version of the policy. Because the lack of clarity may lead to inconsistent decision-making and the implementation of the RIPE NCC blocking mechanism.

With best regards to everyone,


Maxim Smelyanets.