Summary

  • ICANN's Board appointed Patricio Poblete, Catherine Adeya, Chris Buckridge and Miriam Sapiro to its Board Accountability Mechanisms Committee on 22 October. Poblete chairs it.
  • The committee's charter requires a majority of voting members for a quorum. With four voting directors, three must be available; the 2025 slate had five voting directors and the same three-person threshold.

An appeals desk with four chairs looks well furnished until the rulebook asks for three people at the table. ICANN's 22 October Board resolution puts Patricio Poblete in the chair of the Board Accountability Mechanisms Committee, joined by Catherine Adeya, Chris Buckridge and Miriam Sapiro. The roster is smaller than the 2025 appointment: five voting directors then, plus Wes Hardaker as a non-voting RSSAC liaison.

The committee charter allows three to seven voting directors and sets quorum at a majority of them. Last year's five and this year's four both yield a threshold of three. The change is in the spare capacity: two voting directors could be unavailable on the old roster while three remained; the current four-seat roster can absorb one. It is a tiny piece of arithmetic with a large job description.

BAMC handles reconsideration requests about ICANN staff or Board conduct, reviews recommendations from Independent Review Process panels before they reach the Board, and can authorize Ombudsman own-motion investigations. Conflicts are part of that work. In its 5 October minutes, Greg DiBiase, then a voting member, and Hardaker, the non-voting liaison, recused themselves from discussion of Reconsideration Request 26-3 while remaining present. That earlier record shows how a real case can change who takes part in a discussion. The new appointment makes the number of available voting directors worth watching at the next such meeting.