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

[Richard Hill]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chapter-delegates [mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org]
On
> Behalf Of Andrew Sullivan via Chapter-delegates
> Sent: Sunday, 8 November, 2020 21:40
> To: chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Message from Internet Society Audit
Committee
> Chair
> 
> 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.

See my previous comment regarding differences between the responsibilities
and duties of officers in organizations that are not established under US
law.

In particular, regarding bank accounts, in most Swiss non-profit
associations, only 1 or 2 officers have control of the bank account.

> 
> >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.

I don't understand this comment. I thought that I had clearly distinguished
between two kinds of interest: financial and policy.

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