Re: [ga] Comments on ICANN Reform Recommendations

["J-F C. (Jefsey) Morfin" <jefsey@club-internet.fr>]

Dear Karl,
I certainly understand that the Californian oddities may affect the way the 
ICANN is set-up, is advised or is managed. But I am not interested. The 
priority is to the worldwide public interest, the role of the Californian 
choice is to best serve it. If this choice is wrong it is to be changed, or 
the ICANN is to be forgotten by the World Internet Community and another 
solution is to be found to host the IANA. I only hope that you are 
personnaly protected from the consequences of this solution, and that Andy 
will be since during the camapign we rose that question several times in 
Europe and we never got responses.
jfc




On 19:16 02/06/02, Karl Auerbach said:
>On Sun, 2 Jun 2002, J-F C. (Jefsey)  Morfin wrote:
> > Dear Kent,
> > US legalities are of no interest here.
>
>Please don't make the assumption that the writer in question was making
>anything that even distantly approximates an accurate statement about the
>obligations of a California public-benefit corporation (or US Federal
>tax-exempt organization.)
>
>(Although one can have expertise in matters of California law without
>having a license to practice, the two often go hand-in-hand.  You can
>check someone's credentials to practice law in California by going to
>http://www.calsb.org/mm/sbmbrshp.htm )
>
>Thick volumes have been written on these matters.  As a general
>proposition public-benefit bodies are not divorced from the public whose
>benefit they are formed to serve.
>
>And you will also find that California is not some kind of unique haven
>for pseudo public-benefit bodies.  Sure, I'm biased in favor of California
>- I'm a native Californian - but even if I do say so myself, the legal
>regime here is based on many of the same notions of corporate forms found
>in other states of the US and other nations of the world.
>
>One of my concerns, and one I expressed during the first board "retreat",
>was that these ICANN r"evolution" proposals are so radical that they
>vitiate the understandings that gave rise to ICANN's California
>public-benefit and US Federal tax exempt status and thus could lead to
>either an invalidation of those privileged positions or require, at least
>in the latter case, approval from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or
>a requalification.
>
>                 --karl--