Re: [nc-budget] An association under French law 1901

["Erica Roberts" <erica.roberts@bigpond.com>]

Its good to hear that we have options. As I see it, the main problem of
setting up in France is the language problem.  My French is not good and I
would be unable to operate within a French language constitution.

It may be worth considering setting up in Australia.  The law here is
somewhere between US and UK law and it is easy to set up a not for profit as
a legal entity.  Another option is to set up a company in Anguillia.  This
is a British dependancy, stable, and a tax free jurisdiction.  I understand
it is easy to set up a company on-line for, I believe, a cost of around
$us1000 and to establish associated banking arrangements.

erica.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Elisabeth Porteneuve" <Elisabeth.Porteneuve@cetp.ipsl.fr>
To: <nc-budget@dnso.org>; <rogerc@netsol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 12:14 PM
Subject: [nc-budget] An association under French law 1901


>
>
> Colleagues, it is a follow up of our Marina del Rey meeting
> held on Thursday 16 November, 07:15 in Roger's suite.
>
> Elisabeth
> --
> NB. The original message from Roger, quoting Mike Roberts DNSO Accounting
>     is attached at the end.
>
> Forming a not for profit association under French law
> "la loi du 1er juillet 1901 et le decret du 16 aout 1901".
>
> A. General
>
> The law 1901 is explicitly dedicated for not for profit associations.
> It is extremely flexible, and is used in France for various purposes.
> The spectra ranges from associations of school's parents managing
> minimal budget with no staff to non for profit association of banks,
> with hundreds of employees. Approximately one million associations
> in France use law 1901 framework. The European Academic and Research
> Network, BITNET sister-network, was operationg in Europe in late 1980's
> using French law 1901, with the international Board (Chair in Danemark,
> Vice-Chair in Israel), and staff (Manager from Belgium, engeneers
> from France, Italy and India/British Commonwealth).
>
> A non for profit using law 1901 is defined in its Status, which shall
> be drafted accordingly to its purposes and composition, and include:
>  1.1. Duration (may be limited in time, renewable periodically)
>  1.2. Registration place
>  1.3. Membership (may be open to individuals or moral persons, i.e.
>       institutions; no requirement for French or European Union
>       citizenship; the criteria for various membership such as full
>       members or observers shall be described in Status of Association)
>  1.4. Resources (membership fees as well as donations, either from
>       public or private institutions or individuals)
>  1.5. Fiscal regime (VAT, taxes on company benefits if any)
>  1.6. Structure (very flexible, usually Board of Directors,
>       General Manager, and General Assembly; the composition of
>       Board and its renewal are defined in Status, the General
>       Manager is a non voting member of the Board; the powers of
>       the Board and its Chair are defined in Status as well,
>       it include annual budget, work plan, recruitment plan,
>       finances and accounting, rules for member's acceptance and
>       revocation, and any other business as it see fits; the annual
>       GA meeting is mandatory; the mandate of General Manager
>       is defined in Status)
>  1.7. The staff of non for profit association is submitted
>       to the common French rule for employment (such as packages
>       for retirement or medical insurance).
>
> To declare a non for profit using law 1901, the following shall
> be accomplished:
>  2.1. Status shall be written (either using any of standard
>       examples provided in loi 1901 books, or adapted carefully
>       to the desired purposes)
>  2.2. Declaration at the prefecture of the Registration place,
>       then subsequent public record and number in the French
>       Journal Officiel (JO). The declaration may be accomplished
>       by a delegate from Board, the cost is 290 FF. Within 2 weeks
>       such a declaration is recorded in the JO, and the association
>       acquire a legal status. Once the legal status established,
>       the association is ready to run its business, including
>       an opening of a business bank account (no restrictions on
>       currency, may be in dollars US).
>
> B. Proposal for the DNSO
>
> AFNIC is in the process to move its offices to a new place in
> Saint Quentin en Yvelines (Versailles area). The buildings place
> has been rented, it will be refurbished in January, operations
> starting on 1 February 2001. The building place is larger than
> necessary for AFNIC purposes, and the independent entrance with
> 100 square meters has been granted to the DNSO from the Saint-Quentin
> economic area. The Saint Quentin grant covers one year of office rental,
> equivalent to 20,000 USD, as well as city taxes exemption.
> AFNIC is co-located in the same building, with its bunker for servers,
> with secure and redundant high speed connectivity, and the high
> quality professional engineers service operation a TLD registry.
> AFNIC legal counsel, who drafted our law 1901 Status, may provide
> a help to draft the similar for the DNSO.
> Some preliminary contacts has been established with an independent
> accountant, willing to work for the DNSO on consulting base,
> and an independent manager willing to ensure the current
> professional service, with the help of AFNIC in back office.
> To be completed a half-time dedicated Technical Officer is needed for
> the dnso.org server and related services.
> The DNSO managing secretariat may start its operations very easily.
>
>
> --original message from Roger, quoting Mike Roberts DNSO Accounting--
> From owner-nc-budget@dnso.org Fri Nov  3 16:02 MET 2000
> Message-ID:
<3309B573228FD411AF4500D0B784A148AA0EE4@netsol-nic-ex01.prod.netsol.com>
> From: "Cochetti, Roger" <rogerc@netsol.com>
> To: nc-budget@dnso.org
> Subject: [nc-budget] AGENDA
> Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 09:58:36 -0500
>
> 1. Review Voluntary Funding Program
>
> 2. Review P{rofessional Services Selection Plans
>
> 3. Review Disposition of ICANN-administered funds
>
> 4. Other matters (see below)
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Roberts [mailto:roberts@icann.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 12:23 PM
> To: Ken Stubbs
> Cc: rogerc@netsol.com; schroeder@icann.org; ajm@icann.org;
> touton@icann.org
> Subject: DNSO Accounting
>
>
> Ken -
>
> In the course of the preparation of our annual financial statements
> by Bremer and Hockenberg, our accountants, and the annual audit by
> KPMG, Diane and I were informed that the current informal "trust
> account" treatment of DNSO funds by ICANN staff is not a permitted
> practice under current accounting principles and practices for
> non-profits.  In order for ICANN staff to get out of trouble, the
> funds currently residing in our corporate bank account must go
> somewhere else by the end of the calendar year.
>
> I discussed the situation briefly with Roger when Joe and I had lunch
> with him last week in DC, since Verisign has made its own funding
> offer to the DNSO.
>
> It is up to the Names Council to make a decision about the handling
> of the funds it raises, but I see three reasonable alternatives,
> listed below in order of my personal preference.
>
> (1) Make accounting a responsibility of a host organization for the
> DNSO.  This is what the ASO and PSO do, and there are certainly
> plenty of large corporations in a position to take on the host
> responsibilities for the DNSO, in the US or elsewhere, in a similar
> fashion.  If the burden is considered significant, the responsibility
> can be rotated, as it is in the ASO/PSO. This brings you within an
> established organizational framework where, as the saying goes,
> "routine things are handled routinely."
>
> (2) Ask the ICANN Board to include a revenue and expense item in the
> annual ICANN budget for the DNSO, and to include the necessary staff
> effort to administer the funds as well.  This also puts you in an
> established organizational framework, with annual audits, but would
> require that your activities be conducted according to whatever
> policies the Names Council and the Board mutually worked out. Since
> the DNSO already operates under provisions of the Bylaws, this
> shouldn't be a big deal.
>
> (3) Use the DNSO unincorporated association account you have opened
> as the basis for all your accounting and adopt whatever procedures
> and controls on the account that satisfy the NC's own accountability
> requirements.  This is the "roll your own" solution and works - if a
> Names Council member is willing to ride herd on the procedures and
> whomever is doing the accounting.
>
> Sorry to hassle you about administrivia, but we have to get this
> cleaned up soon.
>
> - Mike
>