Afrinic: Court stops board election

The board election for Afrinic's central IP address allocation office Afrinic has been halted for the time being. This was confirmed by the court-appointed Afrinic administrator Gowtamsingh Dabee on Monday. At the request of the Tanzanian ISP Association TISPA, the Supreme Court of Mauritius ruled on Friday that the online vote planned for Monday and the election scheduled for June 23rd may not be held for the time being.

"TISPA has obtained this injunction because there are serious concerns that our members and other Afrinic members are being denied essential rights," the Tanzanian association announced. Afrinic members have not been allocated the address resources to which they are entitled. In addition, members who joined after September 2023 are not entitled to vote in the election. Both violate Afrinic's statutes.

Power struggle over Afrinic

The background to this is the power struggle over the African IP address allocation authority Afrinic, which is based in the cybercity of Ebène in Mauritius. Afrinic has been involved in a legal dispute over IP4 address blocks with the companies Cloud Innovation and Larus for years. The registry wanted to recover these addresses after Larus sublet them internationally. In the course of the legal dispute, Cloud Innovation was able to obtain a court ruling that Afrinic can no longer assign IP addresses while it is in receivership.

"We want to set the record straight," TISPA Secretary General Noah Maina told heise online. The association sees itself vindicated by the latest appeal from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which urgently called for the irregularities to be clarified and for a fair election. Both ICANN and Maina have expressed doubts about the neutrality of the forced administrator Dabee.

But another election?

Maina also disagrees with the proposal to have Afrinic's resources managed by the four sister organizations in Europe, Asia, North America and Latin America (RIPE, APNIC, ARIN, Lacnic). According to the TISPA Secretary General, this could only be decided jointly by Afrinic's members.

At TISPA's request, the court also ordered Afrinic to hold the election "in accordance with the articles of association" and in accordance with the appointment notice for the receiver in the latest ruling. The latter has since declared that the election for the eight seats on the currently vacant board could perhaps still take place. An inquiry as to whether he will contest the order has not yet been answered.

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