[Acct-Legal] Request for advice on Swiss law

[Hofheimer, Joshua T.]

Thank you Mathieu and Leon for forwarding this message.  It’s a helpful narrowing of the question.

If we understand you correctly, you are asking us what is required of a “member” under Swiss nonprofit law.  Can a member be an individual, a legal entity, and more importantly a non-cognizable, or non-legal, entity?

We will reach out to our colleagues in Sidley’s Geneva office to see if we can get some help answering this question.

-Josh

JOSHUA HOFHEIMER
Sidley Austin LLP
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jhofheimer at sidley.com<mailto:jhofheimer at sidley.com>
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From: ccwg-accountability5-bounces at icann.org [mailto:ccwg-accountability5-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Mathieu Weill
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2015 2:49 PM
To: León Felipe Sánchez Ambía; ccwg-accountability5 at icann.org
Cc: Steve DelBianco; Cheryl Langdon-Orr
Subject: Re: [Acct-Legal] Request for advice on Swiss law

Dear Counsel and colleagues,

Maybe to focus the question a bit and avoid too large a research in a first step, the key assumption we would like to test is whether Swiss law would enable the SOs and ACs to act with all powers described in our report WITHOUT the need to establish a legal entity associated with the SO or AC.

Thank you for your help

Mathieu
Le 11/05/2015 23:42, León Felipe Sánchez Ambía a écrit :
Dear Counsel,

A comment has been made in the forum which states:


In some countries (in particular in Switzerland), non-profit associations

are, by law, accountable to their membership, in the sense that the

membership has full powers to amend the bylaws (called statues in

Switzerland), elect and revoke the Board, approve and review the budget,

etc.  See articles 60 ff. of the Swiss Civil Code at:



  https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19070042/index.html<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.admin.ch_opc_en_classified-2Dcompilation_19070042_index.html&d=AwMDaQ&c=Od00qP2XTg0tXf_H69-T2w&r=PyftdYkqjEDMIx5o_kyQ1bCTTkOV655ea67oiCGUI9M&m=6sGTf8nFJj0Gz6vttHAI3fBzb8hh_t7l4-vBxEcineY&s=hBJJyn1Gmi5dc2rrck5odVoUmMBlzT9Nd_jR74ZHXr4&e=>

If we accept the principle that accountability is ensured by the members,

then I don't understand why the members of ICANN should not have full powers

to amend the bylaws, set the budget, etc.
We would like to test the accuracy of this comment. To get the complete picture, you can find the full comment here:

http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-ccwg-accountability-draft-proposal-04may15/msg00000.html<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__forum.icann.org_lists_comments-2Dccwg-2Daccountability-2Ddraft-2Dproposal-2D04may15_msg00000.html&d=AwMDaQ&c=Od00qP2XTg0tXf_H69-T2w&r=PyftdYkqjEDMIx5o_kyQ1bCTTkOV655ea67oiCGUI9M&m=6sGTf8nFJj0Gz6vttHAI3fBzb8hh_t7l4-vBxEcineY&s=3Ki70ue5PIk1vIPWIeb2XwiFwLC4g4Qe_R5_SIOR4bg&e=>

This is not urgent so I please ask you kindly to address the outstanding questions identified before addressing this comment.

Best regards,


León




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Mathieu WEILL

AFNIC - directeur général

Tél: +33 1 39 30 83 06

mathieu.weill at afnic.fr<mailto:mathieu.weill at afnic.fr>

Twitter : @mathieuweill

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