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[council] Revised ICANN Board Conflicts of Interest Policy and Other Governance Documents Adopted
- To: "council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Subject: [council] Revised ICANN Board Conflicts of Interest Policy and Other Governance Documents Adopted
- From: Glen de Saint Géry <Glen@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 May 2012 02:29:49 -0700
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- Thread-topic: Revised ICANN Board Conflicts of Interest Policy and Other Governance Documents Adopted
http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-2-15may12-en.htm
Revised ICANN Board Conflicts of Interest Policy and Other Governance Documents
Adopted
15 May 2012
As part of ICANN's review of its conflicts of interest and ethics practices, on
6 May 2012 the ICANN Board approved revisions to the Board Conflicts of
Interest Policy<http://www.icann.org/en/groups/board/governance/coi>, the Code
of Conduct<http://www.icann.org/en/groups/board/governance/code-of-conduct> and
Expected Standards of
Behavior<http://www.icann.org/en/news/in-focus/accountability/expected-standards>.
The Board also approved new Corporate Governance
Guidelines<http://www.icann.org/en/about/governance/guidelines>, a flexible
framework document that collects the sources of corporate governance
requirements that ICANN follows. For more information on how each of these
documents applies within ICANN, please refer to this explanatory
memo<http://www.icann.org/en/groups/board/governance/materials-memo-11mar12-en.pdf>
[PDF, 128 KB].
These four documents were prepared after a review of ICANN's corporate
governance documents, and the resulting recommendations as to how the documents
could be improved in light of best practices in corporate governance, while
still reflecting the needs of ICANN. Each of the documents were posted for
public
comment<http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/board-coi-review-11mar12-en.htm>
in March 2011. They represent just the first stage of ICANN's approach to the
Conflicts of Interest and Ethics review. The ongoing work within ICANN on
conflicts of interest and ethics practices may result in identification of
additional changes to these exact documents. Further, in approving these
revised or newly created documents, the Board has recognized that further
modifications may be necessary - these are living documents that should be
reviewed and amended from time to time to reflect changes within ICANN, as well
as to best practices in corporate governance.
Other Work on Conflicts of Interest and Ethics
As reported by ICANN, there are two other portions of its review of conflicts
of interest and ethics practices. One of those portions was asking Cooley LLC,
a law firm with expertise in corporate governance issues and that is new to
ICANN, to perform a review of ICANN's corporate governance practices. Cooley
produced two reports:
· First Report on Corporate
Governance<http://www.icann.org/en/about/governance/corp-gov-report-03oct11-en.pdf>
[PDF, 401 KB] (3 October 2011, revised on 27 April 2012) and
· Second Report on Corporate
Governance<http://www.icann.org/en/about/governance/corp-gov-report-17apr12-en.pdf>
[PDF, 767 KB] (17 April 2012)
The action items arising out of the first report, including compiling ICANN's
corporate governance document in one section of the ICANN website, providing
dates of amendment for documents such as the Code of Conduct, have been
adopted. In addition, ICANN asked Cooley to undertake recommended research,
which resulted in the Second Report.
In the Second Report, Cooley conduced a comparative review of ICANN's
documentation to the governance documentation of leading institutions. While
Cooley noted that ICANN's policies are aligned with essential governance
principles, it also noted that there may be room for improvement. Two specific
recommendations for improvement followed: ICANN should consider revising its
guidebook for employees to ensure that policies covering unethical behavior and
complaints are satisfactorily covered; and ICANN should consider adopting a
policy to deal with repeat offenders of its ethical and governance standards.
ICANN has already begun work with outside counsel to review its employee
policies and procedures, which will take Cooley's recommendation into account,
and work is ongoing to determine how the recommendation to address "repeat
offenders" can be implemented.
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat
gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://gnso.icann.org
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