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Irish domain registry suspends CEO
Wednesday, October 02 2002
by Matthew Clark


Tensions between the board of Ireland's .ie domain registry and its chief
executive came to a head on Wednesday, culminating in the suspension of CEO Mike
Fagan.

Spokespeople at the IE Domain Registry, the company that controls Ireland's .ie
domain, were unwilling to comment. Fagan claimed he was suspended with pay by the
organisation's chairman, Professor J.O. Scanlan of University College Dublin.
Scanlan, who told ElectricNews.Net on Tuesday that Fagan was still in place as
CEO, was not available to comment on Wednesday. 



According to sources, auditors from KPMG, accompanied by the Gardai, were called
to IEDR's offices in Dun Laoghaire on Wednesday seeking the financial records of
the company, which operates as a not-for-profit entity. The company's current
auditor is BCW Registered Auditors. It is believed that the KPMG auditors were
seeking to do their own review of the company's performance.



Results for the IEDR's first 18 months in operation, reported in May, showed
EUR1.94 million in revenues from registrations. The company said that surplus
revenues for the 18-month period came to around EUR90,000, after EUR1.85 million
was deducted for certain exceptional fees and relocation costs. The company
described its surplus revenue, which came to around EUR70,000 after taxes, as
"satisfactory." 



At the time those results were released, Scanlan expressed gratitude to Fagan for
his work thus far with the business and expressed confidence in him as CEO.



Fagan dismissed the entire affair on Wednesday as "politically motivated,"
claiming that the board has sought to remove him over disputes that surround what
Fagan described as the "over-involvement" in the IEDR of former Telecom Eireann
officials and UCD employees. 



The now suspended chief executive officer has alleged that the company's board
was looking to remunerate its new company secretary, former Telecom Eireann
company secretary Jimmy Joyce, to the tune of several thousand euro a year. Fagan
alleges that paying any board member or company officers for work with the IEDR
would violate the non-profit's Memorandum & Articles of Association. 



The IEDR spun out of UCD in July 2000, but that process is on-going. Like domain
registries in other countries, the IEDR faces regular criticism from hosting
companies and other industry players who say its workings are non-transparent;
the Registry effectively holds a monopoly on the distribution of .ie addresses.



Scanlan has rejected these criticisms in the past and has also rebuked claims
that UCD is "shadow director" of the company. He has also said that the
company never acted in a way that is contrary to what it considers to be in the
best interests of the on-line Irish business community. 



Many of the Registry's board members continue to have strong ties to UCD, and
others are former executives of Telecom Eireann. Professor Scanlan himself was
the chairman and a board member of Telecom Eireann; IEDR board member Ronald
Bolger was the chairman of Telecom Eireann between 1992 and 1999 and he also
serves on the governing authority of UCD and was a KPMG Ireland partner. Patrick
Frain, Mark Keane and former secretary John Coman also all have strong UCD ties,
while the new IEDR company secretary held a similar role at Telecom Eireann. 



Fagan told ElectricNews.Net earlier this week that the only way he would leave
the IEDR was "in a wooden box or with cheque for EUR1 million."