[Chapter-delegates] Message from Internet Society Audit Committee Chair

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

On Sun, Nov 08, 2020 at 09:42:22PM +0530, sivasubramanian muthusamy via Chapter-delegates wrote:
>President offers to serve the ISOC BoT, on the rationale that the Chapter
>(not the individual who has the role of the serving President) has received

As I understand the way this works in US law, when you have those sorts of obligations and powers within an organization they effectively become interests of yours.  In particular, because officers of an organization can normally bind that organization, control its bank account, and so on, they are seen as having an interest linked to that organization's interest.  

>2 or 3000 a year for funding which is used for projects which in effect

The amount of money is effectively irrelevant for these discussions.  (Formally, there's a _de minimus_ standard, which is about $50, but after that it is regarded as an interest.)  Please note that I am not a tax lawyer, this is not legal advice, and if it were it would be worth what you paid for it.

>further the positive interests of the Internet Society.  This conflict of
>interest, if any, is dwarfed by the conflict of interest in the BoT which
>from time to time includes representatives from Business Organizations
>whose financial contributions to the IETF or to ISOC or to ISOC initiatives

This conflates two notions of "interest" in the same way Richard Hill did elsewhere in this thread, so please see my response to him.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
President & CEO, Internet Society
sullivan at isoc.org
+1 416 731 1261