<div dir="ltr">I've added an additional response on the last point, in <font color="#38761d">green.</font><div><font color="#38761d"><br></font></div><div><font color="#000000">Greg Shatan</font></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(23,54,93)"><font>Gregory S. Shatan</font></span><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(23,54,93)"> </span></b></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><font color="#20124d">Partner</font></span><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(23,54,93)"> |</span><b style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:9pt;color:rgb(23,54,93)"> </span></b><b style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(192,80,77)">Abelman Frayne & Schwab</span></b></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif;font-size:12pt"></span></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(23,54,93)">666 Third Avenue </span></b><b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Symbol;color:rgb(23,54,93)">|</span></b><b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(23,54,93)"> New York, NY 10017-5621</span></b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"></span></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:navy">Direct</span></b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:navy"> </span><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(17,85,204)"><a value="+12128859253" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">212-885-9253</a> <b>| </b></span><b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:navy">Main</span></b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:navy"> </span><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(17,85,204)"><a value="+12129499022" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">212-949-9022</a></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:navy">Fax</span></b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:navy"> </span><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(17,85,204)"><a value="+12129499190" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">212-949-9190</a> <b>|</b> </span><b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:navy">Cell </span></b><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(17,85,204)"><a value="+19178166428" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">917-816-6428</a></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><b><i><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:navy"><a href="mailto:gsshatan@lawabel.com" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">gsshatan@lawabel.com</a><u></u><u></u></span></i></b></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><b><font>ICANN-related: <a href="mailto:gregshatanipc@gmail.com" target="_blank">gregshatanipc@gmail.com</a> </font></b></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"><b><i><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:navy"><a href="http://www.lawabel.com/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">www.lawabel.com</a></span></i></b></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 12:58 PM, Burr, Becky <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Becky.Burr@neustar.biz" target="_blank">Becky.Burr@neustar.biz</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word">
<div><span style="font-size:16px"><font face="Consolas">Responding to Eric’s question re independent counsel, my responses are in
<font color="#0000ff"><b>blue</b></font>.</font></span></div>
<div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">If one of the "free, soon, adequate" requirements can be waived, then</span><span style="font-family:Consolas;font-size:12pt">even I don't have my view, but the legal
staff do meet those criteria,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">and their client is the corporation, which is capable of reorganization, a subject of interest for the purposes of exploring the "member" and "oversight" sets of issues.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Consolas;color:#3366ff">I don’t think ICANN staff is adequate, for the reasons described below. Even if someone at Jones Day could be, ICANN will have to pay them, which knocks
out that requirement.<u></u><u></u></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">I'm glad you mention fiduciary duty as there are no shareholders, rather stewards of the public trust exercising reasonable care, inquisitive ...the strictest standard of
duty of care in American law. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Consolas;color:#3366ff">This is one reason that I think we need to go outside. ICANN Legal has asserted that the Board members have a fiduciary duty to the
<u>corporation</u>, and that duty precludes them from agreeing to a binding dispute resolution mechanism. I have never heard them say that they have a duty under California law to the public trust, or suggest that such a duty trumps any obligation is may have
to serve as the steward of a public interest. <u></u><u></u></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">As many members of the community having a material interest in unique endpoint identifiers are employed by for-profit entities with shareholders, the same meaning may not
be conveyed when we use the same phrase.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Consolas;color:#3366ff">Not sure I understand your point here<u></u><u></u></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">Would you do me the kindness (at some point in the proximal future, it </span><span style="font-family:Consolas;font-size:12pt">isn't urgent) of providing a URL to the
conclusion, and perhaps the</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">supporting analysis, of the Berkman Center during the first ATRT review? I'm interested in which legal positions by the Corporation's legal staff they found in need of
additional research.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Consolas;color:#3366ff">The statement I referenced is actually in the Berkman ATRT1 Recommendations:
</span></i><i><span style="font-family:Consolas"><a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/proposed-recommendations-20oct10-en.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/proposed-recommendations-20oct10-en.pdf</a>.
<span style="color:#3366ff">The following is from page 46:<u></u><u></u></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas;color:#3366ff"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.0in;text-autospace:none">
<span style="font-family:Consolas;color:#3366ff">In the course of broad consultations, ATRT received feedback to the effect that ICANN could enter into agreements with parties that called for binding arbitration without running
afoul of California law. While this latitude could apply in a contractual context<b>, it is less clear and deserves further legal analysis as to what extent and through what mechanisms ICANN could agree to enter into binding arbitration more generally</b>.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">Again, were we constituted externally by some other corporate entity,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">then retaining our legal counsel rather than relying upon the legal<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">counsel of the subject of our inquiry, concerning its reorganization,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">would be necessary for the reason you mention -- the ethical duty of<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">counsel towards its clients -- but we -- the CCWG-whatever -- are not,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">and staff -- all of staff, from IT to Legal, as resources allocated by<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">the executive, are available to us. Absent a refusal to allocate or a<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas">demonstration of incompetence, why shouldn't we expect an adequate work product from staff counsel?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:Consolas;color:#3366ff">I was actually thinking of the ethical obligations of ICANN staff attorneys and outside counsel. Given that ICANN has asserted that the Board’s fiduciary
duty under California law prohibits the board from ceding authority to a binding dispute resolution procedure in this context, we already know that they have taken a position that is contrary to the community’s desire. Given that, as well as the Berkman Center’s
conclusion that this issue deserved further legal analysis, I don’t know how we could consider the staff/outside counsel to be unconflicted in this situation. (For the record, I am not sure that binding authority is absolutely necessary – depends on what other
tools are available, e.g., spilling the Board. Based on the what I heard in Frankfurt, however, the community sees this as an important tool for accountability.)</span></i></p></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font face="verdana, sans-serif" color="#274e13">In the corporate world, it is not uncommon for board committees to retain separate counsel, so that they receive advice independent of company's inside and outside counsel. Our situation is analogous. While company's in-house counsel is almost certainly "available" to us, they would not have the requisite independence, for the reasons Becky has stated above and that others have stated earlier. Finally, "adequacy" is not the standard to apply here for several reasons. First, we need better than adequate work product; we need first-rate work product (and really, this is not just about work product -- this is about advice, produced through an iterative process, where the work product is just the end product of that process). Second, while ICANN has a first-rate in-house legal team, that does not mean they are first-rate in dealing with every legal issue regardless of substance. I don't think we need a "demonstration of incompetence" to be reasonably confident that we will get more skilled and valuable advice on these issues from a leading outside counsel, who spends their days wrestling with corporate governance and/or non-profit law issues on a daily basis for a variety of clients in a variety of contexts. Third, this is not merely about being competent -- it is about about getting counsel with the right approach to these matters, whose goal it is to find solutions to the issues we raise, who will look for rational interpretations of the laws, regulations and cases in these areas to achieve our goals -- or to recommend other ways to achieve them if our initial suggestions are not viable or preferable. Keep in mind that there is artistry and advocacy in legal work, and very little legal advice is "neutral" in the sense that no particular outcome is more desirable than any other outcome. Outside of the obvious, lawyers of similar skill and ability will often come to different conclusions based on the same sets of law and facts, for many reasons -- interpretation, risk tolerance, weighting of different variables, prior experience, client's goals, creativity, etc. Even if all we could get is "adequate" legal advice, what we need is OUR adequate legal advice, and we can only get that from independent counsel.</font></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:14px"><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color:rgb(51,102,255)"><font face="verdana, sans-serif"><u></u><u></u></font></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Consolas"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Consolas">Thank you for your kind note, and on the International Law issue, which to me seems excessively speculative, I share your remark.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px">
<br>
</div>
<div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px">
<br>
</div>
<div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px">
<br>
</div>
<div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px">
<br>
</div>
<div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">J. Beckwith Burr<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt"><b><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(6,134,88)">Neustar, Inc. /</span></b><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"> Deputy
General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">1775 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20006<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(6,134,88)">Office</span><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">: <a href="tel:%2B%201.202.533.2932" value="+12025332932" target="_blank">+ 1.202.533.2932</a> <span style="color:rgb(6,134,88)"> Mobile</span>:
<a href="tel:%2B1.202.352.6367" value="+12023526367" target="_blank">+1.202.352.6367</a> <span style="color:rgb(6,134,88)">/ <a href="mailto:becky.burr@neustar.biz" style="color:purple" target="_blank">becky.burr@neustar.biz</a> / <a href="http://www.neustar.biz" target="_blank">www.neustar.biz</a></span></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org">Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org</a><br>
<a href="https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community" target="_blank">https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br></div></div>