General Meeting
Wednesday, 18th May 2022
At 4:30 p.m
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Good afternoon, please don't be shy, come in. Most people are not used to it after two‑and‑a‑half years. We actually have a little quiz: Which RIPE number was the last one we were physically present at a GM?
SPEAKER: 79
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Rotterdam. Since then I was a little blob in one corner of your screen.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: I was asked if we have a resolution I should cut the hair or not, we don't. It was requested, the resolution, not necessarily the cutting. I guess the NCC can slowly close and then we can begin. We are missing Hans Petter. Door is closed, sorry. Let's see if he is coming. At least the board is now complete. Good, let's start.
And I am Christian Kaufmann, currently the Chairman of the RIPE NCC Executive Board and I welcome you to RIPE 84, the General Meeting in person again.
The person before were clicking desperately like me on it. Before we start, the usual disclaimer and legal slide about the administrative matter. We appoint a secretary for this GM after the articles, we have that since a couple of years now and for that I'm choosing Athina, the chief legal officer of the RIPE NCC as secretary for this GM. If you have any objections and want to see the deadlines, they are there and they are published in case you have objections in how the process would work.
Good. With that, agenda:
Number 1 we did. Number 2 was in the NCC Services Working Group and I hope you have seen it, we had various slides on various topics, we outsourced it years ago. I will start with number 3 the report from the Executive Board. We will have a little bit a new agenda which we put in which is number 4 where we talk a bit about the war and how reacted to it and what the NCC did, more than half you have heard before but we put it together from our perspective so you see that one. We will have the financial report from the NCC, discharge of the Executive Board, that's quick, and the charging scheme presented by Ondrej. Then we have election today, we have two seats, come to that, three candidates, we have that part. Then I will read the voting resolutions, everyone's favourite part here. And then we get introduction how the voting works and then we are pretty much done after I open the voting for today. Good.
The report:
And that's us, pre‑corona, we did take new pictures and they are not online yet so that was how we looked two‑and‑a‑half years ago, fresh and young. The composition is Ondrej is treasurer, probably he can wave hands. Maria, Raymond, me, Remco, Job, waving. And Piotr, who is the secretary.
We had a lot of meetings since the last GM, usually from one to three, there, there are many of them in very short order, you can guess why and I will talk a little about that in the presentation about the war, but you see that produces not just workload as we have talked about it in the Services Working Group, in the NCC but also with us.
The minutes are published and you will find them at the regular location.
Documents which we had since the last GM, we had a closure of member and deregistration amendment, we had the activity plan and budget. The strategy document we looked into. The financial and annual report, which Hans Petter talked about it as well. And we also had various resolutions, we of course approved the minutes, I'm not going through every line there. And we had an arbitration case which came up and we looked into that, and we approved the resolution of the provisioning of the critical services, we moderated the members' mailing list again, and otherwise you see all the numbers of the EB meetings for the minutes.
Important topics which we discussed since the last GM. One was the ticket story which came up in the last GM where two members, one was thanking today so much appreciated for that, had various requests and comments and feedback on the LIR Portal integration and you have seen it in the Services Working Group. We talked about alternate charge models, Ondrej will talk about it more, the arbitration case, as I said, we had a lot of topics about the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and how that affects the NCC, not just from a sanction perspective but also we looked if staff actually safe and how does the NCC internally cope with it.
We looked at the impact of the possible sanctions and I liked Athina's phrasing, it's a very dynamic environment, I want to use the wording again, so it pretty much comes up in every board mean, there is the update or various angles from it.
And and the board was ‑‑ these are the sanction parts mainly.
We discussed the plans for the invoicing, again we see something from Simon and Ondrej on that later. We had ‑‑ we have an integrated risk management board which is basically a framework to see what kind of risks the NCC has and how we deal with them and of course the war and the whole situation in Ukraine made it there as well, no question about that. And let's see if I have a slide for that. And we also had a crisis management team. Technically speaking the NCC had it and we had access to the documents so there was a task force crisis team inside the NCC which looked into the activity daily and reacted to it and I stayed in close contact with Hans Petter, wherever he is now, if he made it to the room, and I guess we have never found as in the last two months.
And we talked about the legal structure which was mentioned before as well, right, to actually see how we deal with the various circumstances of either sanctions or various policies and implementations around our service regions, which is very big, and therefore the opinions and how they deal with things is very big and how very different so that is also one of the parts which we have quite an eye on.
That's one overview. And more or less regular slide on the paths we do, we have board meetings, we talk regularly with the senior management team, specifically Hans Petter, the two of us even more, guiding the RIPE NCC management and we are fulfilling our corporate governance and fiduciary responsibilities. We might have run a little bit short in the liaison and cooperation with other RIRs, I think we did that with trouble, when we see each other, it was more natural way, we kind of stayed in contact with them where we had personal contacts but I think from a structured outreach it isn't at the level which we had pre‑corona.
These are the resolutions, I will read them later. But we have ‑‑ these are the first three. And then, of course, we have the election. We have three candidates for two seats, the seats which are up for renewal, very obvious is Ondrej and Remco and then we have a third candidate and they will introduce themselves in a moment.
And as usual, your input to the board is very welcome. Some of you ‑‑ well read the mailing list, that's one part we use. We have seen it in the GMs in the chats as well, in the questions you had and some of you reached out whatever via e‑mail or text or so during the last two‑and‑a‑half years but I don't think it was to the same level you have a natural conversation in the hallway, for me the ‑‑ I was about to say the workload, the interaction has increased quite a bit this week, where you quickly have a talk about various parts so please use this week also tomorrow during the RIPE dinner and until Friday to give us feedback, what you want, what you think. Besides the hallway and this week, of course we have the members discuss and you can always send us directly an e‑mail.
Good. That was that. I would do this second presentation as well and then we open anyway for questions and comments.
So lets see if it is one document. No, it's a different one. We had various crisis and trouble and I guess war as well in the service region before but I think it was never as present as it is this time, and I thought ‑‑ we thought it is valid to have a conversation about it and talk a little bit about what we did, and how we also positioned ourselves so I took that part as an extra slide deck out of the report.
This is our statement which we send it relatively quickly, that's the one you have seen on the mailing list, it's also the one Athina have shown, at least the upper part in her presentation before. This was the official statement how we basically react and position ourselves to various requests and I'm showing now for transparency the requests.
So 24th February, Russia begins the invasion of the Ukraine. 25th, very shortly afterwards we heard about the first sanctions paths. On the 1st March we brought that resolution which was on the slide before so that was like the first time we then formally did official statement towards that and had a better understanding what's going on and how we want to deal with that. Very shortly afterwards, on 2nd March we received actually from the Ukraine government a question if ‑‑ or a request to revoke the rights of Russian members to use Internet number resources, and a similar request was sent to ICANN. Can actually recommend to read the ICANN part and also ISOC has published a lot so then you can see how the rest of the ecosystem responded to it. On 10th March we responded to that request and said we do not have a mandate to take such a unilateral decision and it would undermine the governance and the technical stability of the Internet. And that we are the trusted source of data, this is the part we say since pretty much the inception of it. And you will find the links from the statements here as well. On the 11th March we then informed the Ukraine member that they do not risk losing their membership if they are not able to pay the invoices, again that's what you have heard in the Services Working Group from already two angles. And made on 14th March, then also a comment towards the Russian members for different reason but also in that regard.
On the 4th April we got a request from the Ukraine Internet associations to waive the fee for all Ukraine members, and so far we haven't officially responded to it yet, and but currently our position is, again what was said before, that we ‑‑ the articles of the association says that every member is equal and that they have to all pay, so and we do not have a framework for select after whatever criteria who should pay and who not and also this equality aspect goes away so we actually would need either new Articles of Association or General Assembly resolutions like today. So our statement currently is as we said before, we wait for the money and postpone either the payment or the ‑‑ that we receive the money but the obligation to pay is not gone.
Clearing up some misconceptions. The RIPE NCC is not required to terminate the SSA of sanctioned members or deregister them, pretty much what Athina said before. We also had a payment extension for the Russian members due to external circumstances, but that does not amount to sanction evasion. And all members have the same payment obligations. So there are extensions given but the idea is that, over time, when possible, they would actually pay the full amount to the NCC.
A few points to consider. That is the guiding principles and the logic which we have used for some of these conversations and some of these decisions and that one is as old as the NCC and that is that the NCC must treat all members equally.
Nevertheless, on the last one, we also believe it is important to not closing members who are unable to pay due to factors outside their control, especially in these circumstances.
And I guess, with that, we open the mic and see. Two people have comments, questions, either about the report in itself or the more Ukraine/Russian specific one. I have got to see if I see the queue.
SPEAKER: We have got question from the chat. From Sander Steffann: "I thought I heard board members meeting on Monday, this was not a formal board meeting." He is asking you the meeting on Monday was a formal board meeting on it but he heard it that there was a meeting?
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: If my memory serves me correctly I do not ‑‑ we certainly had no official board meeting on Monday and I don't think we had ‑‑ we had no board meeting Monday. That's true, I come to that, but no Monday. We had one on Sunday, that's correct. We have board briefings in the first place where we talk about the week and prepare ourselves and then we also had a short board meeting, that's correct.
DMITRY KOHMANYUK: Dmitry Kohmanyuk from Hostmaster UAE LIR, I just applaud your clear reporting on the meetings progress and ‑‑ I was one of the people who helped our government to draft that request for the termination of resources even though my own personal position that RIPE would not have such ability because of the local law, you can't cut the companies even if the government is acting in a really bad way towards other country, but nevertheless, I am grateful for the postponement, I heard some members telling me to, well, not formally present them but to pass request but forgiveness of fees on case by case base, they may lose their office base, staff, equipment, all of the above, my understanding the decision can be made later, can offer partial forgiveness, full, postponing for multiple years. One more thing I was asked because it is not a formal request because I cannot act in other members' capacity yet, there is a consideration that some membership in Ukraine may be under duress, for example, say have people in Kherson who had been an ISP or Mariupol and change their relationships and do other changes with regard to their RIPE data entries. There is no way of course for the NCC to know of this situation. You can ask them to blink, be subjected to the force. Nevertheless I think this is something we may consider on the mailing list and maybe some other means, how can you help members who have been forced to do something against their will to not do that, consideratership, stewardship, I don't know the legal terms and it's actually I didn't propose any solution to that, I want you to be made aware that we had some other company in the occupied territory and we spoke to them and they said well yeah, they have been routing to Ross telecom, they are going to tell you exactly where to put the peering relationship, clicking the trigger, I'm not joking and that was done. So I don't know how it is prepared for situation but something may happen. There's still a lot of Ukrainian territory and including Crimea and the south, that have been in some situation, some have already been rerouted and some not, specific resource transfer and contact and ‑‑ forceful acquisitions.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Yes.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you for that question. We have already started to look into what we can do to mitigate such situations. It is far from trivial but we are doing research to see what action we can possibly take in our current frameworks.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you. And it is also next board meeting is end of June, 1st July, and it is on the agenda, I guess, now, latest. So, thanks for bringing it up.
SPEAKER: There's another question from the chat from Elvis from v4 escrow who says: "I would like to address the e‑mail we received from Christian Kaufmann about the alleged... treatment received by an employee from, and everything has been treated with privacy, however the board is asking us to vote for the refilling of two seats, two are running for the re‑election, I would like to know if these are the chicken and eggs running for re‑election in this case, are these duties being suspended pending the investigation?"
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you. We will not comment if the two to be elected board members are under the investigation or actually talk much more about it, that's what the idea of the third neutral investigation is right, we don't make that complicated but let actually someone look into that and deal with that. Whatever the outcome of the investigation is, regardless if it would have been an old or a new board member, that doesn't make any difference then so whatever the consequences are or whatever we do that doesn't make a difference. So that's all I can say to that one.
Cynthia: So I do think it could potentially have a difference. I don't want to go too much into this because it's under investigation still but in the potential situation where this is one of the board members looking to be re‑elected and it happens, sometime after they were confirmed as a candidate it could have implicated for the RIPE NCC and the election board at the ‑‑ Code of Conduct, ask that might be a breach, if it's true and one of the board members gets re‑elected and after a candidate, so I guess the main question is: Do we know when there might be a conclusion to this investigation and if so, what will happen at that point?
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: I do not know the timeline. We talked about the external law party about that as well and it is unclear, I guess it takes as long as it takes. We will report on that and then I think we will see what the outcome of the report is and what potential options could be. So a little bit too early to say. Unfortunately not a very good answer, I'm aware of that, but I don't know either, we'll see.
SPEAKER: I'm expecting because it might be after the minutes are confirmed and as such after the period where the RIPE NCC election Code of Conduct could apply any more and in a way, like, if this would apply, then it would be good to know before that time if it's true, if the allegations are true, as it could disqualify someone or at least it could be a breach. I guess there might not be any way of knowing in time, but if you could take into consideration and maybe like contact the Code of Conduct team afterwards at some point when you might have some information, like if there's something we can do here, that would be good. Thank you.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you. We will look into it. I tried to compute what you said and I do not have a good answer to that. I'm not sure if the outcome is very different, but let's look into that.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: I would urge everybody in the audience to be very careful with what questions you ask now. I fully understand that all of you would really like to know all the details about this case, but the whole point with having an independent investigation is to protect the legal rights of both parties. The more questions you ask now, the more speculations you will generate and the more difficult it will be to have a good, balanced and independent investigation and come with a good outcome of this. So I really would urge you to be very, very careful to try to dig into details about this days. Unfortunately the timing is not so you can have the result before the voting, that is a fact of life. There is no way around that.
SPEAKER: Hear, hear.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you.
SPEAKER: Could you please enlighten me to what method the membership has to remove board member prematurely?
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: You can go and Athina can correct me if I am not precise enough. They can be revoked at the GM, so ‑‑ resolution at the GM and then revoke their status.
SPEAKER: We would have to wait until the next General Meeting to remove a board member?
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: We can have extraordinary general meetings which I guess we had in the past as well.
[Sand] sand I just checked the by‑laws, it actually says at any time, not just at a GM.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Okay, thank you. Last question.
ATHINA FRAGKOULI: Sorry, this power is vested by the GM so it is at any time at the GM. Can you hear me? So this power ‑‑
[Sand] sand that's not what it says.
ATHINA FRAGKOULI: I will read you the article, we don't have to do that now
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: We are going down in that rabbit hole, I am just saying. I said he will ask the last question.
SPEAKER: I will clarify, you are correct, it is at any time. What she is saying is at any time the assembly can call for an EGM and at an EGM you can then do it. That is a legal framework for any organisation, that's why it would be written that way.
SPEAKER: It's more of a comment than a question. It's from Florian Tscheidel asking as a RIPE community member, "I do not know the RIPE NCC is different from the RIPE community. However I hope the investigation and action that follow will keep the community values and Code of Conduct in mind and this process will set a good example for handling these issues. I would like a message to the whistleblower, whatever happens now is not your fault, even if it may break things ensure what process need to improve... on certain values and do not accept behaviour that does not follow them."
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thanks. Good. I expected different questions, fair enough. Let's go to the next agenda point then. Final report. Simon‑Jan. He is remote so I wait now for a little picture somewhere on the left or right side of my screen to see if he is connected.
Simon‑January Haythink.
All right. That means I am ready to go. Hello, second time around me presenting the financial reports of GM and hopefully the last time Covid will have such a big impact on the numbers. Great to see in person meeting ‑‑
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Can I pause for a second. Currently, what you say on the stenography are not exactly in sync which we tried to bring in alignment again, so give us, I don't know, 30 seconds. Have anyone measured the delay?
HANS PETTER HOLEN: The tech team is working to resolve this so give them some time to get this in sync again.
General Meeting continued:
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Hello. Thanks to the NCC for bringing us online again. Good. That was new, we didn't have that before. Good. Simon Jan, you are still there?
Simon Jan: Can I be heard? Good. All right. I shall get started. Hello, all. Second time around me presenting the financial report at the GM. And hopefully the last time Covid has had such a big impact on the numbers. Great to see an in‑person RIPE meeting again, apologies I am not able to join you in person but I am in the middle of moving to our new house so I had to make the choice. Let's get started. Short repetition of our financial strategy, not for profit funding model, aims to generate sufficient income so we can fulfil our obligations in a stable and predictable manner, remember committed to maintaining a low risk profile. The story of the 2021 financial report, income has been over budget of 5 million, 3,500 new LIRs generated over €7 million in income to continued demand for IPv4 ‑‑ Covid limited us to go out and connect with our community, which shows you the numbers. Covid did provide you the opportunity folks on our internal organisation which also shows in the figures, specifically efforts in due diligence and compliance and information security, legal and sanction related issues. All in all, this resulted in a €13.3 million euro surplus which has been redistributed to our members and a very first time we had to report a subsequent event as it can have considerable impact on 2022 and possibly onwards, being the war and uncertainty as a consequence.
We remain in a stable position for 2022, we had sufficient and sustainable income in 2021, costs have been under, we have sound capital and liquidity management, transparent and risk folks areas have been information security, sanctions, legislation and regulations and bank relations. We are ready for the future but as mentioned there are uncertainties.
Updates banks and the sanctions: The banking environment for the RIPE NCC has been complex over time. Reasoning government and international sanctions and ultra high risk countries as defined by our banks. Solution: Long‑term: Continue to research options to receive money in a compliant way. Accounting wise: Postpone payment obligation for countries defined as high risk. In 2021 we postponed €133,000 in payment obligations due to aforementioned reasons.
To give a bit more insight in the complex for RIPE NCC with regard to sanctions and bank restrictions. Athina has already covered all the sanctions restrictions so I will not repeat. Bank restrictions: No receipt of funds allowed ‑‑ possible penalties from our bank, termination of the relationship between the RIPE NCC and the bank. Therefore as RIPE NCC we are required to freeze resources and postpone payment obligations individually sanction members, postponement payment obligations for members in ultra high risk countries.
So moving on to the financials. I am happy to share that all financial performance indicators positive are green. 2021 in numbers:
Our income was 12 .8% higher than projected at €43.5 million. LIR consolidation in line with expectation from 23,569 to 23,209 LIR accounts. We do continue to see a slight growth in our member numbers, 172 in 2021, income from signup fees €7.1 million in 2021 compared to 2.5 in 2020. Total expenditure was €29.6 million, 11.8% under the budgeted. On average we had 161.9 FTEs against budgeted 170. Negative result 457 thousand euro. Surplus of 13.3 million. Capital expense ratio decreased from 112%.
No on site events and travel, effect on recruitment.
Payment behaviour in 2021 did not show any significant impact from Covid, during under 1% of LIR accounts have been closed in 2021 due to non‑payment which is in line with previous years. When the 2022 invoices 60 day term was last Sunday and I am happy to report that despite the ongoing service region payment behaviour is in line with previous years at this point in time.
The balance sheets. The RIPE NCC remains in a stable financial position for 2022, we have a very healthy balance sheet and a very sound position financially. Tangible fixed assets have shown a decline, the decline in hardware is explained by the Cloud projects. The decline in infrastructure and office equipment is explained by the office being five years old, almost all investments made in 2016 when we moved to the new office are financially written off. Explained by two government bonds reaching maturity, no reinvestment has been made due to circumstances and treasury project. Cash in hand shows an increase of under just under €5 million which makes complete sense as income has an overbudget and costs have been under.
Capital and liabilities. We have a small surplus of €2000 to be added to our reserves. Current liabilities are €2.2 million million higher than in 2020 which is explained in full by the higher amount to be redistributed in 2022. With that, I wrap up the balance sheets.
Moving on to income. An overview of LIR accounts for our members in 2021. We ended the year with 23,209 active LIR accounts. I appreciate overview as it visual lieses the maximum risk, about 3,000 LIRs at year end 2021.
New LIR accounts and closures. The 2021 new LIR account development clearly shows the anticipated IPv4 availability and the disclosure showed the effect of clear peak towards the end of the year.
This results in average income per LIR of €1874, if we had the average this is higher at €2173. Moving on to the costs. Overall, 11.8% under‑budget, 60% of posts have been personnel costs 11% and 11% infrastructure. In a non‑Covid year average IPR would have been significantly higher.
The budget variances, the continuation of the Covid story. 3.9 million under budget, overall personnel and infrastructure ‑‑ being the most prominent.
The variances in personnel cost main increase of unused holiday days due to Covid, additional costs for working from home, miscalculation on health insurance budget which unfortunately made its way into the 2022 budget as well and on average total is €110,000 this includes payable personnel and recruitment expenses, this is in line with 2020 but heighter at 102 per.
IT infrastructure we are €608,000 over budget, this is explained by the purchase of business licences related to the due diligence and sanctions efforts. This budget was originally assigned consultancy which explains this difference. As expected the major variances of 2.8 versus budget is simply due to Covid. These variances underline the story of the financial reports. The focus on internal organisations and not being able to spend PR.
A quick recap. Average income per LIR after a slight dip in 2020 this has picked up again in 2021. Of course this is mainly explained of new LIR in 2021. Average expenses for LIR show a stable development but Covid has had a major limiting impact on this number.
Procurement report. 2021. In total we have 14.1 million turnover for all our creditors, 1071 which means an average of €874 per invoice. 25 have been 100,000 euro or higher. 89 of these invoices related to capital expenditure averaging €5,000, of these were higher than €25,000. The majority have been for work ‑ explaining the low average. In total we used 242 creditors in 2021 giving an average of €58,000 per creditor.
Supplies with the turnover of 100,000 or more in 2021. To be clear, this overview excludes in‑house consultancy costs and numbers are totals per supplier. New in the top ten is certified professionals at number 9 which is explained by one big invoice which includes a big part of 2020.
The next ten show more fluctuation, at number 11, ICANN and NRO costs, in previous years this was simply transferred, not invoiced, explaining this new entry. At number 13, IT Cloud expenses, number 16, legal advice with regards to sanctions in banking related issues, at number 17, a new business licence related to due diligence. And at number 18, consultancy for our salary administration. At number 19 just over €100,000 temp agency supplying temps to the registry to assist with data entry work.
Financial income and expenditure. We have a 457,000 unrealised negative financial result. This result consists of 55,000 negative interest income, 58,000 positive and unrealised negative revaluation on fixed financial assets of 459 thousand euro.
To provide a bit more details. Our investment portfolio has had the biggest impact on this result, €166,000 of interest income partly offsets the negative revaluations. On our cash held with banks, we paid just over 0.5% negative interest resulting in 2... together with the Executive Board we have decided to postpone any investment decision due to the current situation in our region. It does provide us with the opportunity to redefine our current for which we have engaged two parties, if and when the Executive Board approves.
Capital and liquidity. We are balanced and healthy. We are ready for the future but that future has considerable uncertainties within the current state of our regions. We are proposing price increase in the membership fees for which Ondrej, we have a clearing‑house reserved to respond to uncertainties and possibility for the GM to vote on redistribution when we run a loss or surplus. Capital first expense ratio is expected to dive below 100% in 2022. The ratio for 2020 and 2021 has been artificially high due to Covid. All in all financially we are in a good place.
Corporate income tax. We have a payable position of €124,000 for 2021. Which may come as a surprise with the commercial result of €2000. Main difference is the fiscal non‑deductible capital gains from clearing‑house reserve which has provided taxable result of 549,000 euro resulted in a fiscal tax rate of 21%. Relates to an effective tax rate of 98%.
I am happy to confirm that the auditors independently provided opinion that our financial report gives a true and fair view of the financial position of the RIPE NCC. That ends the 2021 part of this presentation and I will now continue with the forward looking parts.
The year ahead:
Our budget is 35 .6 million for 2022, income and costs break‑even. Covid seems to be almost over. We expect to see further LIR consolidation and this could have an impact financially. At the same time we do see slight increase in our members and continue to engage with our banks to try and resolve issues impacted by sanctions and look for alternative solutions. We will be sure we can deliver our promise to all our members. The uncertainty in our region does remain app concern specifically the Ukraine and Russia situation, sanctions and inflation.
2022 Q1 figures. We realised 25 .5% of our annual fees budget as we already had 660 new LIRs in Q1. Overall 6% of our income budget in Q1. Over all spent 20% of the 2021 Q1 budget, was of course still affected by Covid and limited travel.
Results: A surplus €1.5 million due to lower cost and budget and higher than expected income.
Moving on to the annual fees 1 million higher due to the inflow of new LIR accounts. Expected this work does assume income from all LIR accounts. Overall, forecasted to be 4% over budget.
The 2022 cost forecast, personnel slightly over budget at 2%. FTE 4% under budget, other operating expenses 2% under budget, total overall forecast to be 1% under budget.
The 2022 result forecast, this takes into account a non‑Covid scenario for the remainder of the year in which travel is back and events are organised in person, surplus of €1.4 million, which provide some stage for the current consequences of the current uncertainty in our region.
Forecast capital and liquidity, ready for the feature but there are certainly uncertainties at the Ukraine Russian situation sanctions and inflation, we do have a buffer to respond, I propose price increase and redistribution mechanism and with regards to Covid, we will be returning to normal state. We therefore do expect the capital expense ratio to drop to around 90 to 91% for 2022.
To wrap up, I would like to end my presentation with a request to the GM. I would like to ask you to expect and start thinking about a vote regarding the redistribution at RIPE 85, which in the case of loss, would be to either deduct the loss from our clearing‑house reserve or redistribute this loss to our members, in case of a surplus that vote will be as in previous years. And with that, I want to thank you for your attention and I am happy to try and answer any questions you may have.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you. So, questions. We have online questions, or question it seems.
SPEAKER: Yes. There is a question from Elvis from V4Escrow. As Ukrainian members have difficulty paying their RIPE NCC invoice can RIPE NCC LIR which compares their LIRs register and could pick up and pay parts of the invoice?
Simon: Let me see, is it possible for others to donate to the RIPE NCC to cover Ukrainian fees?
SPEAKER: I think so, yes.
Simon Jan: Em ‑‑
HANS PETTER HOLEN: I can try to answer that question. As of the 15th May we have around €240,000 outstanding from Ukrainian members. The administrative decision that I have taken so far, at that doesn't require any board action or any GM action, is to extend the payment date for all Ukrainian members so there's no need to pay them right now. There was an effort in AFRINIC to collect donations for AFRINIC when they were in trouble. That did not collect money near the order of magnitude that the outstanding members for Ukrainian members so my personal assessment when we discussed this in internally is that the overhead of trying to create something like that would create much more problems than others. If you want to support the Ukrainian effort maybe look at the NOG alliance effort presented here on Monday and the small donations there could become to much better use. The thinking from me and that's supported by the board when we discussed it so far but of course the board will take any input here and may make different decisions later, is that we extend the payment terms for now, then the Ukrainians can win the war and rebuild the country and then we can see how we collect the money and then we don't have to modify any Articles of Associations or make any new charging schemes or anything like that. If we next year figure out the situation is different or even in the autumn GM we can make different resolutions but rather than rushing to something now that will be difficult to implement or have side effects, just postponing the fees seems to be the simple way out of this.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you.
ELVIS VELEA: Requested audio ‑‑ now he is requesting audio ‑‑
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Sure.
ELVIS VELEA: This is Elvis. The idea was not all of the Ukrainian LIRs need help and we members have no idea who would actually need help, so the way I was thinking was make this as a forum or an actual NCC base where they would ‑‑ LIR UA dot X and I need help paying my invoice, I cannot pay my invoice, in that case someone could just pick up that invoice and pay. And I understand this has been tried with AFRINIC, maybe there's there is a different case there, something else happened. I pay 100 dollars bill or one full bill for an LIR if that would be an option?
HANS PETTER HOLEN: So thank you for your proposal, Elvis, we will take it under consideration again, just to repeat: There is no Ukrainian LIR that needs to pay their invoice right now.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thanks.
ERIK BAIS: A bit related to this. The Ukrainian won the European song festival last year and I am seriously concerned about the Internet connectivity there. We have 13.3 million surplus and I would like to ask the board to consider to see if there is an option instead of paying invoices for the LIRs, making 100% of that surplus available to the Ukraine connected, which would be about €130,000, which is about going over 23,000 LIRs, about €5 per LIR. If you can consider that, thank you very much.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you for the suggestion. We will consider it.
[Borris]: So there is a question from Dmitry from ‑‑ asking why don't you consider hyper inflation in the EU zone as a serious risk for 2022‑2023?
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: I guess that's your, Simon Jan.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: The question is why don't we consider hyper inflation as a serious risk in 2022. We have discussed hyper inflation as a risk and it is clearly a risk but looking at the predictions from the European Central Bank and the national banks in the Netherlands we do not consider it as a serious risk. Whether we and the European Central Bank is right in this assessment, time will show.
[Borris]: I have a last question from Ivan ‑‑ so some time ago in the mailing list a question was raised about waiving the membership fee for the current year for Ukrainian LIRs because objectively we are in a very difficult situation in terms of functioning and receiving payments from our our clients, add more strictly to the... firstly I would like to know the consideration of the results of our requests and if it is a rejection we would like to know about it we would like to express disappointment this is not the first time when request from professional association such as Internet association of Ukraine remaining without any answer, a request to think about improving the interaction with such bodies.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Do you want me to do a response to that as well?
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: You can start and then I chime in.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you for the feedback here. As far as I remember, we did respond rather promptly that the board will discuss this and take it under consideration after getting legal advice and financial advice. We did get the tax ‑‑ and tax advice. We did get the tax advice pretty late before this meeting and when we discussed this with the board on the board meeting on Sunday before the meeting, the board decided they would rather hear input from the members at this GM before they made a decision. When that is said, as I have said now several times, the decision that has been made and that has been made in writing to all members in Ukraine is we have postponed their payment terms and will not close any LIRs due to failing of payment.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you. That was the part we referred to before in the presentation right, when I talked about the war, the second letter of the Ukraine when I said wasn't answered that, that's the one I think this refers to. It is true that we haven't answered yet obviously and as Hans Petter said it was twofold: One, we didn't think it was a very critical one as they do not have to pay right now, so they are not under any threat; the other one was that we wanted to discuss it here and presented it here and actually see a little bit is what the notion is to that topic.
HARRY CROSS: Harry Cross. Just a question on the postponed invoices, especially for the ones that have been postponed for quite a while, has there been some assessment or calculation of any of those invoices, so for resources currently in use may never be collected through no fault of anybody's own really, so the member gets liquidated or there's some form of insolvency.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Yes, there is a risk of non‑payment of those invoices and we are making reservations when we do accounting for ‑‑ but we believe that is still manageable. If we look at the total risk of all sectors in war, because there is more than Ukraine that is in a war or armed conflict situation in our service region, we have at risk up to 10, 11% of the total revenue. Ukraine alone is 1 or 2% and that should be very well manageable that the reserves we have even in the worst case scenario. So I think that the ‑‑ I'm fair comfortable from a financial point of view with the situation. There are other aspects of this conflict like the war itself that is much more worrying to me.
SPEAKER: Yes, I was thinking about the members in Iran or Syria who have been postponed for a little while.
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Good. Borris is not at the microphone, nobody else is, so we move on. Thanks a lot, Simon‑Jan.
(Applause)
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: The next agenda point is rather quick, we have seen the financial report, when I read later the resolutions the board asks you ‑‑ I might have a proper slide to discharge us, but I will read that again later, so I'm not doing it here. Otherwise I read the same sentence three times.
Good. And with that, we get the next presentation, which I believe is Ondrej.
ONDREJ FILIP: Thank you very much, I am the treasurier of the board. And this presentation is usually not that kind of presentation which ends, the Mexican waves go around the room and I expect this even less this time, but let's see how it goes.
So, first of all, what is the charging scheme, we might know we are member based association and the vast majority of our income comes from you, from members. And in the form of fees and membership fees. Those money are collected to cover the activity plan and budget which is prepared by the Executive Board commented by you and finally approved by the Executive Board. So the charging scheme is the means in which RIPE NCC ensure and collect sufficient funds to execute and promise the members documented in the activity plan and budget.
Let me recap the recent activity about this. You know, the charging scheme has been kind of stable for quite a long time, at least the principles of it, and we are ‑‑ came with the activity that we would like to kind of amend it. So, we kind of work on several models which we could introduce you here. First of all model A which was keep it ‑‑ the principle is the same but with a little bit higher fees. B, that there was roughly the same but with introduction of ASN ‑‑ of fees for ASN. And then we introduced two completely new models based on the amount of resource the member is holding, and model C had five categories and model D eight categories, they were in category of a member without resources. So we discussed that quite intensively, there was an open house call about it and thank you very much ‑‑ thank you all who participated and commented. And as I said, the plan was to introduce such an innovated charging scheme here, but you know, the war and the uncertainty related to that changed everything so we rather decided to stay on conservative side and we decided that we ‑‑ this new models probably need some more time and discussion and you know to make those decisions in the time where all the members can pay attention to it. So, basically, what we would like to propose is, to basically stay with the same principles, so to continue with the current model as it is, so basically no change. The only change would be to raise the annual membership fee from 1,400 to 1,550 and we propose to keep the signup fee at the same level as this year so at €1,000.
Also, we propose to keep the separate charge for independence number resources and at the same level which is €50. All other resources will fall under this charge are IPv4 and IPv6 PI assignments, Anycast assignments, and legacy IPv4 resource registrations through a sponsoring LIR and AS numbers are excluded from this charge so they are not ‑‑ you don't have to pay for it.
So, let me a little recap the history because this proposal needs some reasoning, basically every proposal needs some reasoning and this is not ‑‑ this one is no different. Before 2012, the LIRs were charged according to five billing categories so it was more based on the amount of resources the LIR held. Then this was changed to basically current model, so the annual fee was set to 1,800 per LIR. So that ‑‑ the time meant increase just for the members who were in the category extra small; all others ‑‑ fees for all others went down. This fee was further decreased in 2014 to 1750, in 2015 by 9% to 1,600 and since 2016 until today, it has remained at the same level of 1,400 euros.
So the increase we propose is roughly 10 .7% and let me go to some details why is that. So the main reasons are actually two kind of events that doesn't help our finances. The inflow of the new members is slowing down and also there's a huge consolidation of the current LIR accounts, so basically the number of LIR accounts is shrinking and also, and this was mentioned here, currently Europe is facing inflation, it's luckily not hyperinflation but of course this inflation is visible and I am sure you all are kind of found it in, you know, saw it in your own pockets, the energy prices are rising and rising, so that's the main reason that led us to this suggestion to propose this increase.
Although the inflation is quite visible, we have a kind of conservative estimate of growing the costs just by 3.7%, so it's probably below the inflation but we understand the GM membership organisation, we need to take care of our finances quite carefully.
So, two remarks about the inflation. The inflation of this year, that is the part in the lower side, is expected roughly around 5, from 5 to 6% so it's quite significant compared to previous year. The expectation for the next year, which might of course change dramatically over time, are roughly around 2.5%, so that's the reason why we also expect some growth of expenses. And again with the shrinkage of the LIR accounts. And slower income of new members, you know, that basically says that we need to increase our fees.
If our models are let's say too conservative there is always the clear house reserve and redistribution model so in case our predictions are not perfect, we can either take from those reserves or add to them and then redistribute to the other members, of course. And we estimate the number of paying LIR accounts for the next year roughly 21,000, again that's quite conservative estimate but we have to be careful, of course.
Here is a table that provides you the detail what is our expected scenario, you can see that what we roughly estimate would be our expenditure side, almost 37 million and if we will not raise the fees and keep it at the current level our loss might be a little bit over €3 million, while with that increase we would roughly cover that so that will be roughly 0. That's the current estimate. Please note, we are in the middle of 2022 and we are talking about 2023, so it's really, really far ahead and all those predictions in this unstable environment are complicated but we believe that with that increase we can easily finance the run of the organisation, cover all the activities that are planned for the next year.
And ‑‑ one more slide, I apologise. This graph shows how this developed during the time, what was the average cost and income per LIR account during the years. You can see that we are now roughly at the level of the year 2016 so even, that's good to keep those fees quite low, or costs quite low over the time, and this is the estimate for the next year.
And that's the end of my presentation. I will also not read resolution because I cannot do it as great as Christian so I will allot it to him, and if you have any question, now is the right time for that.
Borris: There is one person in the audio queue. Could we grant him audio?
ONDREJ FILIP: I think so.
SPEAKER: Elvis again. I just have a question, something doesn't compute in my mind. This year's redistribution was almost 50% of the LIR fee, was I think over several hundred dollars ‑‑ several hundred euros per LIR, millions if not tens of millions of dollars being redistributed. What justifies an increase of the fee next year if, over the past three or four years, the RIPE NCC has redistributed millions or tens of millions of dollars every year back to the membership?
ONDREJ FILIP: Yeah, I think it was on the slide number 10, which shows the average expense and average income per LIR. You know, of course, the last few years were extraordinary, we had no meetings, so the cost replanned were really under budget because many activities that we would like to do couldn't be done and this will probably, hopefully, change this and next year so this situation is changing quite dramatically and I see Hans Petter trying to jump in.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: I wanted to add Covid, Covid and Covid, that is a big reason for this. If you also look back on previous years you will see what we have redistributed to members have been in general the set‑up fee for new members, now we don't expect a large influx of new members, now to my surprise we still see that, although there is no addresses available for the next one‑and‑a‑half years, and we did lower the set‑up fee for new members this year, so that that will also be lower. So, there is significant change in cost like travelling and RIPE meetings and more meetings that brings the cost back to the level it was before Covid so that's why we are asking for more money simply.
ONDREJ FILIP: I would again remind, there is huge consolidation among the LIR accounts, although the membership is growing the amount of LIR accounts is going down quite quickly. Any other questions? Okay. No Mexican waves, but thank you very much for your attention.
(Applause)
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you, Ondrej. You got away easier than me. Good. Next topic. The elections. I expected a slide where you see every three times and it tells something quickly about it. As I said, we have two seats, three candidates, and they have two minutes to present themselves. They are not really questions or time for them but there was an open session this week, last week, where some people attended, asked questions and that is the forum for the more interactive part and now they are basically just presented themselves so you have seen the face and if you didn't have a chance to read the platform statement from them, then they can now talk about it. And with that, I am looking for Julius.
JULIUS CICENAS: Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and share my view, a bit from ‑‑ I will use my minute to highlight importance of the values. I think technology, we are running should support the values and article decisions. Now we are facing these hard time and we should take care of the Internet and run this active and stable but at the same time we should have our own direction on the values, we can discuss the priorities and so on but at least we have the agreed common direction and help us align on that.
I do believe we can do better here. There could be many ways how this can be reached but, in general, I think that the area for maybe improvements. And RIPE community have, I don't know, maybe thinks smartest people collected and gathered so we can really use this community to ‑‑ to encourage to do better and safer Internet. So, thank you.
(Applause)
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you. Next one is Ondrej.
ONDREJ FILIP: Thank you very much. I hope most of you know me because I have been attending these meetings for roughly 19 years so it's quite a long time. So you also know probably that I started my career as most of you, as a network engineer and also a software developer in one in ISP and one in the national and research educational network and later on my career turned to kind of maintaining the Internet association so I was involved in many membership international associations related to internet exchange points, DNS, for a long time I had been working in those many organisations and trying to help the Internet running and running better and better.
Those three years when I was elected, there were not exactly according to my plan to be honest. I joined the board and every ‑‑ almost month something interesting came. It was the MD change so the previous MD resigned and the new one came, then after I thought, yeah, it's over, the Covid came and then when I just learned we will meet physically so I thought yeah, that's hope that even this catastrophe is over, then the war started, accelerated, or basically, it was really interesting time and I really have to thank you, even if you will not vote for me today, it was three years of great experience and I was really lucky enough to be with my colleagues on board in RIPE NCC, so thank you very much and if you consider voting for me, I will be happy to bring my experience again to the board. Thank you so much.
(Applause)
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you, Ondrej. And next, no big surprise, last but not least, Remco.
REMCO VAN MOOK: Thank you, Christian. So, this marks the end of my fourth term as a board member, and why am I standing here again? I mean, that's an excellent question because I asked it myself as well and there's basically two reasons. Apart from that, I am proud of the achievements that we have managed to push through in the last couple of years. I think for the next three years, there's two main topics that I would like to use my experience to address. First of all, systemic risk. Systemic risk to the global RIR system, to the way the Internet is fit together and the war in Ukraine has certainly highlighted the vulnerability of the system and finding ways around it and making sure that the Internet, in the way we know it, survives in some way, way, shape or form is of great concern to me. Second is corporate structure, we are an association, we are still organised as the local fishing club and that's all very nice and good and I hugely appreciate the empowerment of the members. At the same time, we are looking at a structure where board members are now currently personally liable for in theory something like 30 billion dollars, and the only reason why that works is because it's so laughable and I do think we need to start having a serious discussion about how we evolving the governance and the structure of this organisation to be able to take it forward. And that's all ‑‑ that's my two minutes and that's all I have got to say, thank you very much.
(Applause)
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thank you, Remco. So, let's see if they are different slide decks or the same. Please. So as usual, we now get an explanation how you vote, in case you are still confused or you never knew. Here comes the explanation.
KARLA LIDDLE‑WHITE: I am communications officer at the RIPE NCC and I am going to take you through how to vote at this General Meeting.
So we had 19592 eligible voters, voter turnout was 6 .7% from 75 countries.
This time we thought into the five we would show you ten top countries which I thought was interesting and what I found more interesting is, there's now a link you can go to on the presentation and you can go and have a look at all of the different countries and, yeah, I quite like data.
Right then. Voting on resolutions, there are three resolutions and for all three you need more than 50% yes votes for it to pass. Abstentions are noted but do not count. The Executive Board election, there are three candidates to fill two seats, there is instant run‑off voting, and this is where you rank candidates so you must fill at least one preference for a valid to be considered valid or you can choose to be abstain. 1 being your top preference and you can choose to fill as many preferences as there are candidates.
Instant run‑off voting:
This is a preferential voting system where candidates must receive more than 50% of top preference votes to be elected. If no candidate receives more than 50% in a round of voting the candidate with the fewest top preference votes is eliminated. This system then recalculates after redistributing according to the order of preference you have chosen.
This process of elimination and recalculation continues until a candidate receives more than 50% of top preference votes. For the second seats the votes are reused and the process remains the same.
We have nifty little explainer video, you can click the link if you go on the presentation and see it there. I have recorded a how to vote video that will also be on the GM web pages as well so you can listen to me again do all this.
So, there are paper ballots at this GM and also electronic voting. Voting can only take place one the Chairman declares it open, now for the paper ballots it's for attendees only and the paper ballots must be handed in before you leave this room. For the electronic voting, electronic voting is available to all members who have registered and you can vote electronically until 9 a.m. on Friday, 20th May.
Paper ballots. Make a mark in a box for each resolution, otherwise your vote will be deemed invalid. Now you must hand in your paper ballot before you leave this room. I think there's a theme going on here. And then for the Executive Board voting, you must use numbers 1 to 3 or you can mark with an abstain in the box. 1 is your most preferred and 3 least preferred candidate. Both seats will be filled on the basis of this list, and hand in your paper ballot before leaving the room.
Electronic: Click the link in the e‑mail that you have received if you elect to vote electronically and you will vote on each resolution in turn. If you are voting on behalf of one ‑‑ sorry, more than one member, you will be able to adjust the weight you assign for each vote submitted using that little yellow box. You will receive an e‑mail receipt for each vote cast and you can select the information that you would like included in that receipt.
Now, for the Executive Board election, remember to number candidates in order of your preference with one being your top preference. The candidates are listed in very random order and you can choose to abstain here as well.
Announcing the results. So the results will be presented on Friday, 20th May, when we reconvene at half past ten, UTC plus two and the Executive Board Chairman will announce the results. We will also live‑stream the announcement. Thank you very much. Does anyone have any questions? Borris has got one.
Borris: There is one person in the audio queue.
SPEAKER: I am here. Sergeant can you share the amount of the paper ballots requested by the members?
MS WHITE: I believe it was 18.
BLAKE WILLIS: I think I have said this at every GM since we have had the rank choice voting in place for board members but my understanding of the reading of the BigPulse rules is that a rank choice vote still counts as a vote, so if you do not want a candidate to be on the board you do not vote for them like 1, 2, nothing, not 1, 2, 3, you don't rank your candidates in order if you want candidate 1, you pick candidate 1, if you pick 2 you pick 2, if you don't want candidate 3 you put nothing.
MS WHITE: Can I refer that to Fergal please if that's possible, please.
FERGAL CUNNINGHAM: I kind of agree but it is still a presentation choice so if you prefer 2 more than 3 you should indicate that preference, of course if you don't want someone to vote you don't need to vote all the way down the ballot, that's for sure.
MS WHITE: Thank you.
(Applause).
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Thanks a lot, Karla.
That's it? Okay. Here we go. I thought I'm reading the resolutions, here we go, apparently I'm not, lucky you. Then, nevertheless, I have to open the voting, which I now do, and then as Karla lovely said, we see each other at 10:30 on Friday and then I announce the results. Hans Petter runs in a different direction. Is that a good or a bad sign, Hans Petter? They have to come to a conclusion before everyone leaves. Resolved, you still have to listen to me.
Here we go. And I thought I am lucky. Resolutions. Resolution 1:
The General Meeting adopts the RIPE NCC financial report 2021.
That's the one you have seen.
Resolution 2:
The General Meeting discharges the Executive Board with regard to its actions as they appear from the annual report 2021 and financial report 2021.
Resolution 3:
The General Meeting adopts the RIPE NCC charging scheme 2023.
That's what you have seen from Ondrej.
And then the RIPE NCC Executive Board election is to fill two seats. The three candidates, they were presented and it was explained how to vote.
And, with that, the voting is open, we even have a slide for it, and the GM will convene on Friday, 20th May, at 10.30 UTC plus 2, thanks a lot and have a lovely evening.
(Applause)
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: As it was said by Karla I guess five times, do not leave the room, the 18 people who have the paper ballots, put them in the champagne coolers, don't leave, otherwise your vote will not be cast. Thanks a lot.
LIVE CAPTIONING BY AOIFE DOWNES, RPR
DUBLIN, IRELAND
General Meeting
Friday, 20th May 2022
At 10:30 a.m.:
CHRISTIAN KAUFMANN: Good morning. So, hello. So, Mirjam started the week by saying this is her first time abstaining since it became ‑‑ since she became RIPE Chair. I am saying this is the last time I am standing here as the Chairman of the RIPE NCC. If you paid some attention in the Address Policy Working Group, I guess, and in the community one, then you have seen that ASO was so kind to appoint me as ICANN board number 10 or seat 10 which starts in September so during the summer I will hand over the Chairmanship to a volunteer in the board and then that person will continue and do the presentations and everything in October.
So, with that out of the way ‑‑ I will finish my term until next May so I will sit on stage on one of the chairs but hopefully talk less.
So, with that out of the way, let's have a look at the voting results. Resolution number 1. "The General Meeting adopts the RIPE NCC financial report 2021." With yes, the resolution was approved. You see the numbers. I am not reading all of them.
Resolution number 2: "The General Meeting discharges the executive board with regard to its actions as they appear from the annual report 2021 and financial report 2021."
This resolution was approved as well. Thanks a lot, much appreciated.
Resolution number 3: The charging scheme "the General Meeting adopts the RIPE NCC charging scheme 2023." With 953 yes, so the resolution was approved as well and we all pay a little bit more.
And last but not least, the board elections. Out of three, two elected, two sitting members were reconfirmed so Ondrej and Remco will continue. Thanks a lot for that. With that, the General Meeting is closed thanks a lot.
(Applause)