Thanks Becky,

Given the fluidity of the situation, I am responding in my personal capacity in order to reply somewhat timely, not having yet had a chance to discuss this with my colleagues.

Concerning substantive and procedural requirements near the top of the document, I would say that with respect to the IRP and to some extent Reconsideration Requests (RRs) it would be good to add consideration of:

·         Monetary award limitations (e.g., a prohibition on any money damages other than direct damages);

·         Some limited discovery rights (beyond the present ICANN document review policy) to interview witnesses and review documents; and

·         The precedential nature, or not, of IRP decisions (maybe including on RRs as well as IRPs).   

The one substantive thing I would like to comment on concerns the word “binding.” It seems from our  conversation yesterday that you might have a concern with the notion of binding independent review power. I remain of the view that the IRP (or some reviewing body) must have the power to take a decision that has teeth. At the end of the day, we are looking for a check on ICANN given the absence of NTIA. It seems clear that some entity other than ICANN should have the final (well defined and limited) power to act as a backstop.

David McAuley