[CWG-Stewardship] The PTI board

Tue Apr 21 01:24:13 UTC 2015

We can always get more clarity on this from counsel.  Here's a generic
description of the duties of a California non-profit corporation from the
website of another firm (Adler & Colvin).  The fourth bullet is most
germane to the present discussion.

The following are the general duties and responsibilities of nonprofit
directors in California. Many states have similar provisions, although the
specific laws of nonprofit corporate governance will differ from state to
state:

   - The Board of Directors, as a group, is ultimately responsible for
   overseeing the corporation's affairs. Individual directors as such have no
   authority over the corporation or its staff.
   - The Board may delegate its responsibilities to others (staff,
   professional advisors, officers), but it retains the obligation to
   supervise those persons. Directors may rely on reports from officers and
   employees, reliable outside experts, or Board committees, so long as the
   director has no reason to believe that reliance is unwarranted.
   - Directors must act in good faith, in what they believe to be in the
   corporation's best interests (the duty of loyalty), with such care,
   including reasonable inquiry, as an ordinarily prudent person in a like
   position would use under the circumstances (the duty of care).
   - Board functions generally include strategic planning; hiring, firing,
   reviewing and compensating (if applicable) the Executive Director;
   approving the annual budget and annual financial statements; overseeing
   investments; fundraising (if necessary); ensuring legal compliance
   (including tax-exempt status) in administration and program operations.
   Boards should avoid micromanagement.
   - Both California corporate law and Federal tax law permit transactions
   with insiders, but impose additional procedural protections to ensure the
   transaction is beneficial to the corporation. Those protective procedures
   include advance full disclosure of conflicts, reasonable investigation,
   findings of fairness, approval by disinterested directors, and proper
   documentation.
   - Boards are required to ensure that assets are spent for the charitable
   purposes for which they were received by the corporation (the charitable
   trust doctrine), in accordance with the Articles of Incorporation, the
   Bylaws, and the donor's intent. Deviation from these purposes may require
   court approval.
   - The Board must ensure that assets held for investment are invested
   prudently.
   - A director's breach of fiduciary duty that causes harm to the
   corporation will make the director personally liable to make the
   corporation whole. The Attorney General is responsible for enforcement.

On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 7:53 PM, Gomes, Chuck <cgomes at verisign.com> wrote:

> In my experience, Boards usually don't have operational management
> responsibilities although the management team would answer to the Board.  I
> think it is accurate though that the Board will direct management to
> implement agreed to changes.
>
> Chuck
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cwg-stewardship-bounces at icann.org [mailto:
> cwg-stewardship-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Matthew Shears
> Sent: Monday, April 20, 2015 1:00 PM
> To: jrobinson at afilias.info; cwg-stewardship at icann.org
> Subject: Re: [CWG-Stewardship] The PTI board
>
> Jonathan
>
> In that regard, one of the questions I think we have to answer is what
> responsibility does the PTI Board have vis-a-vis the IANA functions team,
> if any?  If there is a management responsibility (and I would assume there
> is if PTI is the operator) then the PTI Board is more than just a legal
> function.  The IANA team I assume would be accountable to the PTI Board,
> the PTI Board in turn to the ICANN Board.  So, if as a result of the
> periodic review undertaken by the PRT there are changes that should be
> implemented in the IANA team or its operations, the PTI Board (as operator)
> would implement those changes.  Seems to me that this points to a PTI Board
> that has a broader role than just a legal purpose related to the affiliate.
>
> Matthew
>
> On 4/20/2015 5:45 PM, Jonathan Robinson wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > In thinking about the composition of the board, we need to be clear
> > about the purpose or function of the board and what (if any) tasks it
> > needs to undertake and or decisions it needs to make.
> >
> > It is clear to me that it has (at minimum) a legal function but that
> > function may well be filled by a minimum board that we previously
> > referred to as an internal or insider board.
> >
> > Are we clear that the PTI board has a function beyond that minimum and
> > that the functions we may require it to perform are not already to be
> > performed elsewhere?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Andrew Sullivan [mailto:ajs at anvilwalrusden.com]
> > Sent: 20 April 2015 17:36
> > To: cwg-stewardship at icann.org
> > Subject: Re: [CWG-Stewardship] The PTI board
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 12:17:53PM -0400, Avri Doria wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I do not think we should avoid putting some multistakeholder
> >> character in the PTI.
> > It seems to me that the proposal _is_ multi-stakeholder.  There are
> > stakes
> > -- names, numbers, protocol parameters -- and they're represented.
> >
> >> IETF laision (are we sure they would agree to this extra level of
> >> participation?
> >>                        We should be cautious assigning roles &
> >> responsibilities to them
> > I agree with this worry and thank you for raising it.  One thing
> > that's attractive about Milton's proposal, however, is that it simply
> > adds a responsibility to a role alredy defined, so we don't have to
> > find more volunteers and so on (though we do need to add this to the
> > list of things the liaison would have to do).  It certainly needs to be
> confirmed.
> >
> >> a GAC rep  (government particpation)
> >> an ALAC  (user particpatiion)
> > Why?  IANA is a clerical job for a specific purpose.  What ought the
> > GAC or the ALAC have to say about it?  By constraining the board to
> > this narrow scope of those actually directly affected, we have the
> > hope of constraining PTI from becoming the leverage with which to
> > force other issues (much as has been done in this process, where the
> > entirely clerical IANA job is getting used as the lever to cause ICANN
> governance changes).
> >
> >> an ICANN Board rep
> > Since the other appointees are already ICANN board members, why is an
> > additional one needed?
> >
> >> If all accepted, that would bring it to 9.
> >> Still a small number.
> > In my experience, a team of five can make a decision that a group of 9
> > cannot.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > A
> >
> >
> > --
> > Andrew Sullivan
> > ajs at anvilwalrusden.com
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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>
> --
> Matthew Shears
> Global Internet Policy and Human Rights
> Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)
> + 44 (0)771 247 2987
>
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