9 June 2015

 

 

Dear Alissa, Patrik, Mohamed, Martin, Milton, and Xiaodong,

 

 

In response to your 27 May request the CWG-Stewardship has been developing its response to the ICG RFP, which includes an implementation plan. We refer you to Section IV. D. (Pages 40 – 42) for further detail. For all changes, including changes that do not require further assessment by the ICG, we expect that the community will work with ICANN in implementation.

 

As you noted in your letter, the exact timeframes are difficult to predict, especially since the CWG-Stewardship recommends the establishment of a new legal entity the Post-Transition IANA (“PTI”), an affiliate of ICANN. In creating PTI, the CWG-Stewardship also envisions the development of a new contract (between ICANN and PTI) for which the group has received a sample term sheet, but has not developed further.

 

According to our independent counsel’s assessment, the CWG-Stewardship expects that the incorporation of PTI could be done in a short period of time. The longer lead-time items include:

 

1.     Identifying the ICANN assets that would need to be assigned to PTI and assigning those assets under an appropriate agreement.

2.     Drafting the PTI governance documents (i.e. articles of incorporation and bylaws).

3.     Drafting and finalizing the ICANN-PTI Contract.

 

Our legal counsel estimates that the above items could take 3-4 months depending on complexity and need for multiple iterations of such documents. Furthermore, additional uncertainty of timing is created by the fact that ICANN has not yet assessed the CWG-Stewardship’s proposal for an implementation timeline. There will also be other factors to consider, such as seeking to ensure ICANN’s tax-exempt status, for which our independent legal counsel could not estimate. 

 

The CWG-Stewardship RFP response highlights other elements for implementation such as the Customer Standing Committee and the IANA Function Review. These elements are expected to be incorporated into the ICANN Bylaws as part of the CCWG-Accountability’s work. The timeline for implementation of new ICANN Bylaws has not yet been confirmed, but is actively being considered by the CCWG-Accountability as they develop their implementation timeline.

 

We have focused our response to you on the PTI, the essential, and possibly longest, implementation portion of the CWG-Stewardship proposal. We refer you to Section IV. D. (Pages 40 – 42) for further detail on the implementation list.

 

The CWG-Stewardship will send the final proposal to the chartering organizations by 11th of June in time for them to deal with it at the ICANN 53 meeting in Buenos Aires in Argentina.

 

If you have any questions regarding any aspects of the proposal, its development, and its implementation we are at your disposal.


 

Regards,

  

Lise Fuhr & Jonathan Robinson

CWG-Stewardship Co-Chairs


From: Alissa Cooper <alissa@cooperw.in>
Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2015 at 12:25 PM
To: "'cwg-stewardship@icann.org'" <cwg-stewardship@icann.org>
Cc: Mohamed El Bashir <mbashir@mbash.net>, Patrik Fältström <paf@frobbit.se>
Subject: [CWG-Stewardship] Time frame inquiry (corrected)

My apologies, the first version of this email that was sent was missing one question. Please find the corrected version below.

----

Dear CWG,

The ICG chairs recently received a letter from Larry Strickling <http://www.ianacg.org/icg-files/correspondence/Letter-to-ICG-May-6.pdf> that included the following text:

"I ask that the community provide us with an update on the status of the transition planning and the associated timeframes, including the community’s views as to how long it will take to finalize the transition plan and implement it after it is approved. We request that you and the three primary customer working groups provide us with your views before the end of June, which will give you the opportunity to discuss these issues with the multistakeholder community at the June ICANN meeting in Argentina. In providing this feedback, please keep in mind that the United States Government will need sufficient time to evaluate the proposal and that all work items identified either by the ICG and the CCWG-Accountability as prerequisites for the transition will need to be implemented prior to the ending of the contract.”

The ICG is therefore gathering input about how much time the operational communities believe they will need to complete proposal development and implement the aspects of the transition proposal that the communities have identified as needing to be completed prior to the expiry of the NTIA contract (e.g., creation of new contracts, agreements, or entities). From start to finish, approximately how many weeks or months do you think your community will need to complete proposal development? From start to finish, approximately how many weeks or months do you think your community will need to complete implementation of these aspects? We asked about this in our RFP but would appreciate a current estimate. We understand that these time frames may be difficult to predict; we would appreciate your best estimates and an explanation of factors contributing to those estimates.

If you could provide us an initial response via our liaisons to the CWG (Martin Boyle, Milton Mueller, and Xiaodong Lee) by June 9 at 23:59 UTC, that would be much appreciated. If you have further thoughts to communicate to us later in June, that would be welcome.

Thanks,
Alissa, Patrik, and Mohamed