It was supposed to be a new beginning. But on the day when a new auDA Board, including a new Chair, was announced, it appears there are still recriminations from those in the past with explosive allegations of what could at worst amount to corruption by outgoing directors. Not only that, the new Chair was second choice, with the first choice as Chair overruled due to what can be best described as a personality conflict.

First, today. A new Board has been appointed. The new Chair, Alan Cameron AO, was appointed after an executive search for the new Board. However the first recommendation for Chair, a high profile female company director, was overruled due to what Domain Pulse has been told can be best described as a “personality conflict” with at least one person on the outgoing Board.

Cameron has had a strong background having been appointed Chair of NSW Law Reform Commission in 2015 and prior to that was head of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) from 1993 to 2000. According to what is believed to be his LinkedIn profile he has been an Executive Director at Macquarie Group since 2007.

The new Board has stronger executive experience than previous Boards, but only a few Directors on the 9-member Board appear to have any background in the domain name industry. Also, auDA members were told there would be 6 independent appointed directors, one of which would be the Chair, and 4 elected directors. However in their announcement of the new Board today there were only 3 elected directors, none of whom have a background in domain investing which is sure to irk that community.

It also emerged today that a Freedom of Information (FOI) request in the name of Christopher Byron Leptos has been lodged on the Right to Know website [account now deleted – see below for explanation], a website setup where the public can make requests for information on the goings on in government departments and their agencies, of which auDA, the .au policy and regulatory body, comes under through their connection with the Department of Communications and the Arts. The request has been timed 2 days out for the annual general meeting on 14 November, the last of which the outgoing Directors will attend.

Leptos was the former auDA Chair who walked out of a Board meeting in late July never to return with claims he was spurned in his request for more information on the then auDA CEO Cameron Boardman’s allegedly falsified academic qualifications. However it’s likely Leptos is not the person making the FOI requests as several of the requests relate negatively to him, but rather a disgruntled present or former Director, or even staffer, or both, with intimate knowledge of recent happenings at the Board level.

There were 6 FOI requests to the Department of Communications and the Arts dated 12 November in Leptos’ name, these relating to:

• “serious allegations of bullying and intimidation committed by AUDA Chair Chris Leptos between May 2018 and June 2019 resulting in the resignation of a company secretary and an official complaint from a current AUDA staff member”
• a “serious breach of governance and directors duty committed by AUDA director James Deck via his attempt to inappropriately access AUDA marketing funds, specifically” relating to an application using Deck’s position on the Board for “substantial marketing funds for his private business” and that former Chair Leptos “attempted to cover up and misrepresent the conduct of Deck”
• a request for all relevant information on a direction from Departmental Officer Vicki Middleton instructing outgoing acting Chair Suzanne Ewart to “withdraw her application for Chair of the new AUDA board”
• allegations of “verbal abuse directed at Departmental staff member Annaliesse [sic] Williams by AUDA directors Joe Manariti and James Deck at the ICANN meeting in Barcelona in October 2018” including amount of alcohol consumed by Manariti and Deck and response of the then Chair Leptos
• an order by acting Chair Suzanne Ewart “to pay her A$10,000 per week despite there not being a Board resolution or budget for this to occur”, which didn’t include superannuation payments and was in addition to her Chair salary of $70,000 which would have taken her total salary “to $627,000 per year, making her the 9th highest paid public servant in Australia”
• expense claims by the aforementioned Directors James Deck and Joe Manariti relating to their attendance at the ICANN meeting in Barcelona where the FOI request alleges Deck and Manariti’s flights were “booked through Manariti’s wife [sic] travel agency (African Luxury Safaris) at 30% more than market rates and equivalent airfares and contrary to AUDA travel policy” with “4 nights in Prague, 4 nights in Paris and 7 nights in Barcelona which shows that only 3 meeting [sic] were conducted over the 18 day trip”, “hotel accommodation in Barcelona at A$1500 per night for a luxury suite, despite other AUDA staff and directors staying in A$250 per night accommodation and a “total expense claim showing the AUDA was charged over $35,000 for this travel for 3 meetings in 18 days”
• allegations relating to the above travel by Manariti and Deck that “AUDA incurred [an FBT liability] totaling over $11,000 as the travel was of a personal nature and not approved by AUDA and that the Chair of AUDA Suzanne Ewart covered up this liability”.

UPDATE: The Right to Know account set up to raise the allegations has now been suspended as a report was received the “account was created to impersonate someone else.”