Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] continuity of operations funding requirement

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Richard,
On 8/12/10 11:10 AM, Richard Tindal wrote:

> My understanding of the Financial Continuity Instrument is an amount
> of cash, or an irrevocable cash instrument, which the registry places
> under the control of ICANN.
The term is defined in the evaluation criteria, p94 of 312 in the 
draft-rfp-clean-28may10-en.pdf, para 2, which reads:
"In the Continuity question in the financial section (see Question 
#50), up to 3 points are awarded if an applicant provides, at the 
application stage, a financial instrument that will guarantee ongoing 
registry operations in the event of a business failure. This extra 
point can serve to guarantee passing the financial criteria for 
applicants who score the minimum passing score for each of the 
individual criteria. The purpose of this weighting is to reward 
applicants who make early arrangements for the protection of 
registrants and to accept relatively riskier business plans where 
registrants are protected."
What is being provided, and where, is not defined.

Assume an application by a cooperative located in Korea for an IDN 
string related to agriculture and rural food marketing which creates
a financial instrument denominated in KRW at the (Korean) National 
Agricultural Cooperative Federation, NH Bank [1].
The proposed facilities-based registry operation is in Korea, and the 
proposed operating costs, the costs that are the actual expense to be 
continued by some instrument, are proposed to all be paid in KRW to 
Korean accounts, individual (staff) and corporate (vendor).
I think it is difficult to conclude that the financial instrument only 
meets the continuity purpose if it is in dollars in a bank in Los Angeles.
At p186 of 312 there is a prior to or concurrent with the execution of 
the registry agreement reference, and the definition refers back to 
the quoted text above, from p94.
At p200 there is "... Registry Operator ... has duly executed and 
delivered to ICANN an instrument that secures the funds required to 
perform registry functions for the TLD in the event of the termination 
or expiration ..." Here the language addresses the instrument, what 
the currency instrumentalized is, and what institution the instrument 
is drawn upon, is undefined.
That's all we know from draft-rfp-clean-28may10-en.pdf.

Eric

[1] http://www.nonghyup.com/Main/main.aspx