Cyglass, Nominet and the loss of $23.5 million!

[CreativeMix]

I can't find any discussion of this on here.

https://jimdavies.co.uk/?p=389

 

[super-whois]

He's already jumped to the conclusion that CyGlass was a scandal when he's not even got much information about it?

Do you put all your eggs in one basket? We don't know the facts, so surely an inquiry is a good thing, so that the facts can be determined, independently assessed, and a conclusion form a neutral party can be provided?

What happens if he gets elected, an inquiry is held into CyGlass and it's found that nothing bad was done but it was just a mix of normal business stuff that caused the downfall?

Then we would be reassured by a third party, that that was the case. Currently we do not have that independent assessment, only virtue signalling by the current board that sold CyGlass for $1!

 

[JimDavies]

The scandal for me is the loss of such a huge sum of money (in proportion to Nominet's income) by a company that was created to run .uk as a not for profit company limited by guarantee.

I would certainly not say I knew what a proper investigation would reveal. That is the opposite of what those who say it isn't needed are saying - they say we know what happened, move along, nothing to see here. For a fraction of a percent of what has been lost, I think we should at least get a detailed understanding of it and use that information to guide what happens next - to prevent it happening again.

Was it just bad judgement or was it something worse? I don't know. But I want to know. One thing I do know is that Haworth and other execs' contracts were changed in just before the EGM, removing a clause that would have enabled Nominet to sack them at no cost if they were removed from the board by the members. Which is what happened.

Instead, Haworth was given a £300k payoff a few days later, and his resignation was used to try to swing the EGM result, including Mark Wood calling Simon Blackler and asking him to withdraw the EGM motion. That's not normal or, on the face of it, acting in the interests of the company. Am I wrong in wanting that, and other things, properly explained. Transparency and trusting the members with that information.

Being on the board could limit the work I could do. Which I’ve been doing for about 20 years. So I can assure you that is not what motivates me to stand for election.

 

[xdnet]

A business failing and having a multi-million dollar loss isn't automatically a scandal. Things like that happen all the time.

Not in a non-profit, limited by guarantee, member company when many members clearly vocalised their opposition to such a high-risk VC-style approach to diversification (which in itself, many members, myself included, argued for years was not needed in a business like Nominet which doesn't have shareholders to please and was created for a single purpose.)