-- ============================================================ Michael Sondow I.C.I.I.U. http://www.iciiu.org Tel. (718)846-7482 Fax: (603)754-8927 ============================================================
Purchase Order No. 40S8NT067D20 (NTIA/ICANN) is in violation of Federal Acquisition Regulations for the following reasons: 1) There were no competitors for the contract; 2) The offer was not made publicly; 3) The contract was not put up for bids; 4) Contractor NTIA's representative, Beckwith Burr, was instrumental in the formation of ICANN, the recipient of the contract; 5) Contractor's representative Burr is personally acquainted with companies and individuals financing recipient ICANN and has facilitated its acquisition of the contract; 6) Contractor's representative Burr has not ensured that recipient ICANN conform to contract requirements of the NTIA, specifically that recipient be a membership organization representative of a consensus of service stakeholders including users; 7) The NTIA's Burr sits on an advisory committee of recipient ICANN, the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), which is a per se organizational conflict; 8) An officer of the recipient - ICANN President Michael Roberts - is a representative of an important organization - EDUCAUSE - contracting services with ICANN and therefore is in conflict of interests with the contract; 9) The attorney for recipient ICANN, Joe Sims, who wrote ICANN's bylaws and, according to Congressional testimony, was instrumental in selecting its Board of Directors, is a former officer of the Antitrust Bureau of the U.S. Department of Justice and was chosen for his ICANN functions specifically to attempt to make recipient ICANN impervious to antitrust action, to which it would naturally be vulnerable and liable as a cartel of special interests; 10) Members of ICANN's Board of Directors are representatives of special economic interests, such as IBM, that will have unfair competitive advantage in controlling the contracted Internet services. ============================================================== Federal Acquisition Regulation (http://www.arnet.gov/far/) Subpart 9.5--Organizational and Consultant Conflicts of Interest .500 Scope of subpart. This subpart-- (a) Prescribes responsibilities, general rules, and procedures for identifying, evaluating, and resolving organizational conflicts of interest; "Organizational conflict of interest" means that because of other activities or relationships with other persons, a person is unable or potentially unable to render impartial assistance or advice to the Government, or the person's objectivity in performing the contract work is or might be otherwise impaired, or a person has an unfair competitive advantage. 9.502 Applicability. (a) This subpart applies to contracts with either profit or nonprofit organizations, including nonprofit organizations created largely or wholly with Government funds. (c) An organizational conflict of interest may result when factors create an actual or potential conflict of interest on an instant contract, or when the nature of the work to be performed on the instant contract creates an actual or potential conflict of interest on a future acquisition. In the lattercase, some restrictions on future activities of the contractor may be required. 9.505 General rules. The two underlying principles are-- (a) Preventing the existence of conflicting roles that might bias a contractor's judgment; and (b) Preventing unfair competitive advantage. In addition to the other situations described in this subpart, an unfair competitive advantage exists where a contractor competing for award of any Federal contract possesses-- (1) Proprietary information that was obtained from a Government official without proper authorization; or (2) Source selection information (as defined in 3.104�3) that is relevant to the contract but is not available to all competitors, and such information would assist that contractor in obtaining the contract.
