If the board decides to take funding off the Auction benefits pot, that's their right (and maybe obligation I gather) but I think they should at least explain why the ~100M set aside for potential legal costs wrt new gTLD was not used instead. From the beginning the Auction benefits were labelled as "not for ICANN budget" and replenishing a reserve is clearly a budgetary action, so I'm interested in understanding which constraints on the 100M legal provision mentioned above has been evaluated as stronger that something as clear as the "not for ICANN budget" attached to the Auctions. I'm not trying to revert this ICANN's board decision, I just want to be able to explain the decision made to outsiders. Thanks. On 2018-10-24 13:20, Erika Mann wrote:
*Dear CCWG AP colleagues - *
*Cherine Chalaby asked for a meeting this morning, October 24, to inform me as CCWG AP Co-Chair about a resolution the Board will pass tomorrow morning, October 25, concerning the replenishment of the Reserve Fund. Maarten Botterman attended the meeting and Chris Disspain was present for a short period at the beginning of the meeting.*
*To replenish the Reserve Fund, the Board resolution will request a contribution from ICANN ORG on an annual basis (8 years), total $32 Million, and an immediate contribution from Auction Proceed, total $36 Million. These two amounts seen together would replenish the Reserve Fund (in 8 years) to the agreed height. *
*Cherine was interested in informing us ahead of the decision and I mentioned, that we were expecting such a move and, as far as this is concerned, we're not surprised to see the Board passing this resolution tomorrow and that we do appreciate his approach in informing us ahead of passing the resolution. *
Reminder:* The* '*Document for Public comment – Replenishment Strategy for the ICANN Reserve Fund' (open date, March 6th, 2018/closed April 25th, 2018) mentioned the following about the replenishment of the fund in relation to the topics mentioned above: * *https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/proposed-reserve-fund-replenishm... <https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/proposed-reserve-fund-replenishment-strategy-06mar18-en.pdf>*
*§ Contribution from ICANN Org: Future adopted budgets could be made to provide a contribution to the Reserve Fund on an annual basis. This would require ICANN Org to plan each fiscal year for expenses to be lower than funding by an amount explicitly designated for the purpose of replenishing the Reserve Fund. Given ICANN’s funding constraints, contributions from ICANN org to the Reserve Fund replenishment result from a reduced allocation of ICANN’s resources to its on-going activities, in order to produce a surplus that is allocated to the Reserve Fund. Such allocation is and needs to continue being the subject of community engagement and input. *
*§ Auction Proceeds: ICANN currently has US$ 104 million collected from auctions that were held as the mechanism of last resort to resolve string contention in the new gTLD program (including investment returns). This amount excludes US$ 132 million relating to the auction of the .WEB string net of auction fees *
*Kind regards, * *Erika *
*Barcelona, October 24, 2018*
_______________________________________________ Ccwg-auctionproceeds mailing list Ccwg-auctionproceeds@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/ccwg-auctionproceeds