Summary

  • At the October 2019 RIPE NCC General Meeting, Option B — 50% of the 2019 financial surplus to the Clearing House reserve, 50% redistributed to the membership in 2020 — passed with Yes 911, No 738, Abstain 59; Option A (keeping the entire surplus in the reserve) failed with Yes 561, No 1,124, Abstain 64 [1][2].
  • The redistribution totalled EUR 8,365,249 against total annual fees of EUR 33,099,600, allocated proportionally to each member's 2019 fees and delivered as a discount on the 2020 invoice, not a cash refund [0].
  • The mechanism is codified: Standard Service Agreement Article 7 gives the General Meeting the annual power to add, deduct or redistribute the financial result, with details set in the Clearing House Procedure [4][3].
  • Per the RIPE NCC financial report, redistribution of excess contributions has operated since 2015 and follows the fiscal result, not merely the accounting result [9].

The instruments that authorised the money

The 2019 redistribution is best read as an exercise of a pre-existing contractual power rather than a discretionary gesture. Article 7 of the RIPE NCC Standard Service Agreement establishes the Clearing House as a tax-free financial reserve and states that the General Meeting "will each year decide on whether the RIPE NCC's financial result will be added or deducted to or from the Clearing House reserve or will be redistributed among the Members" [4].

The operational details — fee-proportional shares, crediting on the following year's service fee, a three-year fee basis for one-off redistributions — sit in the Clearing House Procedure (ripe-625), which RIPE NCC documents tie to a Dutch tax ruling governing how amounts may be redistributed to members [3].

What the October 2019 meeting actually decided

The minutes of the October 2019 General Meeting show the Executive Board put two options to the membership. Option A would have added the entire 2019 financial surplus to the Clearing House reserve; it was rejected by a wide margin (Yes 561, No 1,124, Abstain 64). Option B split the surplus evenly between reserve and redistribution; it passed (Yes 911, No 738, Abstain 59) [1][2].

The minutes also record the default: had neither option been adopted, the full surplus would have been redistributed to the membership in 2020 under the Clearing House Procedure — meaning members who wanted redistribution were voting to preserve a statutory default, while Option A would have moved money into the reserve [1]. The same meeting adopted Resolution 2, amendments to the Articles of Association (Yes 1,193, No 240, Abstain 257) [1].

How the money reached members

The redistribution page sets the arithmetic. Each member's share equals its paid 2019 annual membership fee — including the membership contribution and fees for Independent Internet Number Resources and/or Legacy Internet Resources, excluding sign-up and re-activation fees — divided by the EUR 33,099,600 total, multiplied by EUR 8,365,249. Only members with active LIR accounts at 31 December qualify, and the share appears as a discount on the 2020 invoice rather than a cash payment [0].

The mechanism repeats, with variations

Adjacent years confirm the pattern rather than an anomaly. The 2018 redistribution totalled EUR 11,002,630 — adjusted down from EUR 11,302,630 on 18 January after final confirmation of the figures — against a denominator of EUR 27,142,388 [7]. The 2020 redistribution reached EUR 11,035,874 on a denominator of EUR 33,518,200 [6]. By October 2024 the resolution wording had consolidated into a single excess-contribution/deficit decision (Yes 1,127, No 90, Abstain 9): any excess to be redistributed in 2025 per the Clearing House procedure, any deficit covered from reserves [8].

The financial report adds the boundary condition: redistribution follows the fiscal result, so an accounting surplus can still produce no redistribution — as in 2024 [9].

What the 2019 vote says about the control surface

A codified remedy does not mean an uncontested one. Option B passed by 173 votes of 1,708 cast; more members voted No on Option B than voted Yes on the failed Option A. The recorded vote is the strongest public evidence that the reserve-versus-redistribution trade-off is a live annual conflict between financial stability and member refunds, mediated by a procedure the membership itself approves each year.

Sources