The ICANN Ombudsman Chris LaHatte, issued a report today on a complaint by Sophia Bekele on behalf of DotAfrica, alleging a conflict of interest on 2 members of the ICANN Board, finding no conflict existed.
“The essence of the complaint is a complaint about a conflict of interest with members of the ICANN board in considering issues about new gTLDs applications. This was first raised by DotConnectAfrica which sent 2 separate letters dated July 9, 2012 to report a matter of Conflict of Interest on .Africa new gTLD applications regarding Mr. Mike Silber, a member of the ICANN Board from South Africa, and Mr. Chris Disspain, a member of the ICANN Board from Australia. Subsequently a complaint was made to the office of the ombudsman in relation to the issue on October 2012.
The starting point for conflict of interest policy is the policy adopted in December 2011.
The purpose of this policy is to identify conflicts of interest but also to ensure that any such conflicts are identified. The Board Governance Committee of ICANN is responsible for administering policy and requires board members to complete statements of position on an annual basis.
Under this policy regular statements of interest are lodged with the secretary for ICANN.
The latest relevant to this is 12 March 2012-from the ICANN Website:
“Summary of ICANN Board Statements of Interests
Mike Silber – Director and treasurer of ccTLD .za domain name authority and member of the Management Committee and treasurer of Internet Service provider Association (ISPA) South Africa.
Chris Disspain – Director and CEO of .au Domain Administration Limited, the .au ccTLD manager; .au has sponsorship agreement with ICANN under which .au pays ICANN a yearly amount based on the amount of names under management. Former Officer of ICANN, Paul Levins, has been named as a Director of .au Domain Administration Limited.”
“I have asked the complainant to specifically identify the actual conflicts and asked “I would like to have explained the precise details of the conflict of interest which you say exists with these two board members.” I have not received any more detail than the letters, which identify connections, said to be the conflicts of interest”.
Investigation
“To conduct this investigation it has been necessary to look at the board meeting minutes to analyze whether there have been any decisions made at the new gTLDs subcommittee which actually affect the complainant. It is of course quite possible that there would be issues which affect these 2 applications, but virtually all of the minutes of the committee are available online and available to be read.…
