[CCWG-ACCT] Meeting with CCWG Advisors

[Samantha Eisner]

Hi Paul -

I recognize that you may be discussing a different type of audit than a straight audit of financials, but I thought it was of value to point out that ICANN has, for many years, been subject to an audit of its financial records performed by an independent auditor.  Each year’s audited financial statements is available from the ICANN historical financials page at https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/historical-en.  The ICANN Board’s Audit Committee oversees the auditor selection and reporting process.

In addition, to the extent the surplus you raise is then placed into a reserve fund, principles for the management of the operating fund and reserve fund are included within ICANN’s investment policy (https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/investment-policy-2014-07-30-en?routing_type=path), which is regularly reviewed.

Best,

Sam

From: Paul Rosenzweig <paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com<mailto:paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com>>
Date: Sunday, March 22, 2015 at 12:57 PM
To: 'Jordan Carter' <jordan at internetnz.net.nz<mailto:jordan at internetnz.net.nz>>, 'Arun Sukumar' <arun.sukumar at nludelhi.ac.in<mailto:arun.sukumar at nludelhi.ac.in>>
Cc: 'Accountability Cross Community' <accountability-cross-community at icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community at icann.org>>
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Meeting with CCWG Advisors

Dear Jordan

This is a very useful point – one, that I’ve been making in other contexts for a while.  Two things we should consider requiring:

Conduct and publicly release a five-year forensic audit. Before entrusting ICANN with greater autonomy, it should provide evidence that its financial and management decisions have been sound and comport with accepted business practices.

Conduct an annual outside audit. ICANN should be required to contract with an internationally recognized auditing firm (such as Deloitte, Dettica, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, or KPMG) to conduct and publicly release an annual audit of the organizations. The costs should be paid by ICANN and the new IANA consortium and the auditing firm should be eligible only if it does not have a pre-existing contract with ICANN.

One other point:  If, as seems to be the case, ICANN’s current fee structure creates an excess of income over expenses, thought should be given to requiring a rebate of some sort --- it is not wise for a “non-profit” to routinely run a surplus as that will be an inducement to expand the mission into new areas where the $ can usefully be spent.

Paul

Paul Rosenzweig
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From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan at internetnz.net.nz]
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2015 9:37 AM
To: Arun Sukumar
Cc: Accountability Cross Community
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Meeting with CCWG Advisors

Another question which came up in the discussion this afternoon, is the question of "following the money" - what does economic influence translate into in terms of power within ICANN, and how is the CCWG taking account of this?

It's an important question that I am not sure we've spent much time on yet.

bests
Jordan


On 22 March 2015 at 11:34, Arun Sukumar <arun.sukumar at nludelhi.ac.in<mailto:arun.sukumar at nludelhi.ac.in>> wrote:
Valerie D'Costa, an advisor to the CCWG, raised a couple of interesting and important questions on process and substance. I hope this is a faithful reproduction.

On process:

1. What should be the role of advisors? Should they offer advice on the basis of unanimity or "rough consensus", or just provide input independently?

2. Should advisors restrict their role to responding to questions that have been flagged by the CCWG and routed through the chairs? Or should they/ can they flag issues they feel are important - weighed from their expertise.

On substance:

1. How is the accountability process taking stock of the evolving "global internet community", given that it is going to be driven by numbers from the  developing world?

2. Taking off from Q1, is the CCWG evaluating the future capacity of ICANN to be truly representative in the years to come?

arun

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