Rescue mission for Africa’s Internet registry
After over four years of constant litigation that left Africa’s Internet registry paralysed and facing liquidation, Mauritius’ Prime Minister has stepped in — formally designating Afrinic a Declared Company.
The designation institutes an investigation into the affairs of the African Network Information Centre (Afrinic), overseen by the Registrar of Companies.
Incorporated in Mauritius, Afrinic is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for the African continent and Indian Ocean region.
It is one of five global bodies tasked with managing the allocation of Internet resources, like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.
IP addresses are a fundamental part of the Internet’s infrastructure, required by every server and user to connect and communicate globally.
Afrinic is without a board or CEO due to a protracted legal battle caused by an attempt to reclaim large blocks of valuable addresses assigned to Cloud Innovation, an IP broker registered in the Seychelles.
Between 2013 and 2016, Afrinic assigned over six million IP addresses to Cloud Innovation in four large blocks.
However, in 2021, Afrinic’s board resolved to reclaim those blocks, arguing that Cloud Innovation was not operating as an IP broker when it applied for them and had failed to use them per its original application.
In response, Cloud Innovation and its allies launched a barrage of lawsuits to prevent the loss of their valuable resources.
Well-placed industry sources told MyBroadband that Afrinic’s governance was so poor that it was primed for an aggrieved and well-resourced member like Cloud Innovation to “drive a truck through them”.
The legal onslaught crippled Afrinic and opened the door for the Mauritian courts to place the organisation under administration and appoint a receiver to reconstitute its board and appoint a CEO.
However, Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam’s general notice published on Friday, 18 July 2025, called this into question.
“I am advised that the process leading to the company being placed in receivership is legally questionable,” Ramgoolam stated.
Reputational damage
Ramgoolam said the situation had caused, and continued to cause, serious reputational damage to Mauritius as a jurisdiction internationally.
This comes amid questions from some Afrinic members and the international community about whether Mauritius was a suitable host for something as essential as a Regional Internet Registry.
Among the concerns was the lack of transparency of the Mauritian legal system, specifically that court documents were not public by default.
Cloud Innovation’s litigation against Afrinic also revealed the Mauritian courts’ proclivity for granting injunctions and ex parte orders “at own risk and perils”.
The courts would grant injunctions or interim orders without necessarily weighing the case’s merits, and place the liability on the plaintiff for the damages caused if it gets overturned later.
One instance of this early in the fight was when Cloud Innovation sued Afrinic for substantial damages and obtained an ex parte at-own-risk garnishee order, effectively freezing the organisation’s bank account.
The order threatened Afrinic’s ability to pay its running costs or make payroll, and created uncertainty about what its collapse could mean for the stability of the entire global RIR system.
While Afrinic got the garnishee order lifted, the courts took nearly three months to hear its side of the story and rule in its favour.
The Number Resource Organisation, a coordinating body for RIRs, warned in a 2022 letter to the Mauritian government that this did not paint the country’s judiciary in a good light.
“It would be very unfortunate for the African regional community if the above situation proves that the designation of Mauritius as the place to locate Afrinic has been wrong,” it said.
Failed Afrinic board elections
Amid questions about whether Afrinic should be in Mauritius, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) warned it could derecognise the RIR.
Several strongly worded letters signed by ICANN President and CEO Kurt Lindqvist warned Afrinic’s receiver that it was at risk of facing a full review and being derecognised as a Regional Internet Registry.
ICANN is the apex authority on global Internet governance. It does not intervene in regional disputes unless it believes something drastic is amiss.
Its warnings came during and after the court-mandated Afrinic board elections due to concerns about irregularities in the voting.
The elections were held online from 18 to 23 June, with in-person voting taking place at a designated venue on the last day.
According to the Internet Service Providers’ Association of South Africa (ISPA), individuals arrived for in-person voting with over 800 purported powers of attorney from various Afrinic resource members.
These powers of attorney (POAs) allowed the person holding them to vote on behalf of the resource member.
However, Afrinic has fewer than 2,400 members spread across its service area. Even during a highly controversial election in 2018, only 177 votes were cast.
ISPA said there had been numerous reports from Afrinic members that fraudulent powers of attorney had been presented and votes cast in their names.
Following pressure from various industry organisations, Afrinic resource members, and ICANN, voting was suspended and the election ultimately annulled.
In a notice published on 30 June, the receiver announced that they had applied to the court for an exceptional extension and were granted a new deadline to hold the elections by 30 September 2025.
He also announced that the process would begin back at square one, asking the Afrinic community to put forward candidates for a new nominations committee.
Liquidation and Declared Company
Cloud Innovation believes there is no reasonable prospect of a successful election when even the highest verification standards, including notarised and apostilled documents, proved insufficient.
It believes that any election will be challenged regardless of outcome, causing Afrinic to remain in a permanent state of limbo.
Rather than waiting for a lengthy ICANN process to derecognise the RIR, Cloud Innovation argued that the same result can be achieved by winding up Afrinic, which it applied for on 10 July 2025.
It is unclear how Ramgoolam’s notice designating Afrinic as a Declared Company impacts the compulsory winding-up application.
Section 240 of the Mauritian Companies Act refers to the suspension of proceedings against the declared company.
However, while some Afrinic members argue that this suspends all legal action against the organisation, others have cautioned that the statute only suspends proceedings relating to liabilities.
In addition, Section 233 of the Act states that the inspector’s report could only be delivered to the Registrar of Companies, Ramgoolam, and Afrinic. It is possible that it may never be made public.
“The Registrar may, where he is of the opinion that it is necessary in the public interest to do so, cause the report to be published,” the law states.
It also states that the Registrar of Companies may launch legal action in Afrinic’s name, in the public interest, if the investigation uncovers any fraud at the company.
The Act also states that the Registrar may bring proceedings “for the recovery of any property of the company which has been misapplied or wrongly retained.”
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