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ICANN Contracting and Disbursement Policy

Effective 28 July 2015

1. Purpose:

The purpose of this Policy is to outline contracting and disbursement approval authority granted to Officers of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). This Policy also defines the authority granted to ICANN Officers in order to facilitate making payments in furtherance of approved disbursements.

2. Definition of obligations:

Contractual and disbursement obligations include all oral and/or written commitments on ICANN's behalf including contracts for goods or services, employment contracts, lease commitments, investments, purchase orders, vendor invoices and other similar obligations.

3. Review and due care:

All contractual and disbursement obligations must be reviewed for budget impact, risks, legal considerations, optimal procurement practices, ICANN's internal control policies, and consistency with ICANN's strategic mission.

4. Who approves or authorizes (see chart):

ICANN Officers include: Chief Executive Officer (CEO), President, Global Domains Division, Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), General Counsel and Secretary, Chief Innovation and Information Officer (CIIO), and Vice President, Policy Development Support.

5. Approval and payment authorization Limits (see chart):

The entry into all contractual or disbursement obligations must be approved by an ICANN Officer, as designated by the Board of Directors pursuant to the Bylaws. All contractual or disbursement obligations up to US$50,000 must be approved by at least one ICANN Officer. All contractual or disbursement obligations over US$50,000 and up to $100,000 must be approved by at least two ICANN Officers. All contracting or disbursement obligations over US$100,000 and up to $500,000 must be approved by at least three ICANN Officers, two of whom must be the CEO, COO, or CFO. Any contractual or disbursement obligation of US$500,000 or more must be approved by the Board.

Who approves?

Approval Limits

Any one ICANN Officer

Up to US$50,000

Any two ICANN Officers

Up to US$100,000

Any three ICANN Officers, two of whom must be the CEO, COO, or CFO

Up to US$500,000

Board of Directors

US$500,000 or more.

Only one ICANN Officer needs to approve any disbursement obligation if that disbursement is made pursuant to a previously approved contractual or other obligation.

Notwithstanding the approval limits set forth in this policy, no further Board approvals for contractual or disbursement obligations are required if the Board has previously approved a specific budget within which the contractual or disbursement obligation is included. For example only, if the Board approves a budget for a Public Meeting, which includes US$1,000,000 for hotel and venue expenses, staff will be authorized to contract for and make any disbursement of payment for such hotel and venue expenses without further Board approval.

In terms of this Policy, a payment is defined as an authorization from ICANN to a financial institution to release funds from an ICANN account in furtherance of a contracting or disbursement obligation. Such a payment can be in the form of a check, a wire transfer, ACH, a cash withdrawal, or any other means of payment.

The Officer(s) authorizing payment as defined in this Policy must first verify that the disbursement being made has been approved by one, two, or three officers, or by the Board, in accordance with the approval limits set forth above.

Who authorizes payment?

Authorization Limits

Any one ICANN Officer

Up to US$1,000,000

Any two ICANN Officers, one of whom must be the CEO, COO, or CFO

US$1,000,000 or more

The following other financial related matters may be authorized by any one ICANN Officer: (i) authentication of manual funds transfers; (ii) entering into agreements for electronic banking; (iii) opening of safe deposit box; (iv) application for letter of credit; and (v) other administrative actions required to operate existing bank accounts.

Payments made to any ICANN Officer must be approved by another ICANN Officer.

Payments made to any Board member must be approved by the CEO, COO, or CFO.

6. Approval process:

Approvals may be structured as "up to" approvals. For example, the Board of Directors may approve of a known commitment in advance with a maximum amount approved. If the item is negotiated for a greater amount, then the approval must be requested again.

7. Reporting:

The CFO must report on a periodic basis to the Board of Directors, through the Board Finance Committee, on all significant disbursement activities including reporting on the new gTLD expenditures as referenced in paragraph No. 6 above, as well as report on financial performance and significant variances from budgets.

8. Compliance with Policy:

The CFO is responsible for complying with and reporting on all financial internal controls, including complying with this Policy.

9. Review of Policy:

The Board Finance Committee is to review this Policy and the appropriate limits periodically.

Archived Policy (01 July 2013)

Archived Policy (16 March 2012)

Archived Policy (10 December 2010)

Archived Policy (20 February 2008)

Archived Policy (17 October 2006)

Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."