Afrinic: Government of Mauritius intervenes
After the Afrinic board election was annulled due to irregularities, the government has announced an investigation. ICANN is also increasing the pressure.
(Image: Konstantin Yolshin/Shutterstock.com/heise medien)
The annulled board election of Afrinic IP address allocation agency Afrinic has now led to an official investigation by the Mauritian government. At the request of Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, President Dharam Gokhool instructed a judge of the Supreme Court at the end of last week to investigate the events at Afrinic.
This concerns not only the board election, which was annulled following irregularities, but also its history. Due to numerous legal disputes with the address dealer Cloud Innovation and its partners, Afrinic has been without a board of directors for three years, is almost unable to act and is in receivership.
Abuse of the courts?
The dispute was triggered by the registry's attempt to withdraw IP addresses allocated to Cloud Innovation after the company had sublet them to international customers. Since then, Cloud Innovation and its partners have been trying to gain control of their address pool in court.
According to the government, these proceedings are “legally questionable” and could be “the result of an abuse of the courts,” writes President Dharambeer Gokhool in the notice of initiation of the investigation, which is available online at heise. Since November 2024, the registry has no longer been able to assign IP addresses for the entire continent. This has damaged the reputation of Mauritius internationally.
Judge Nicholas Oh San-Bellepeau is to investigate the affair from the outset and uncover possible criminal acts by Cloud Innovation, its partner companies and also the receivers appointed at Cloud Innovation's request.
Among other things, the lawyer is to look into whether Cloud Innovation's registration as an Afrinic shareholder in the spring was lawful and whether Cloud Innovation used “any abusive or concerted actions to paralyze Afrinic.”
Shortly after the board election, Cloud Innovation attempted to have the result recognized. Meanwhile, the company is pursuing the dissolution of Afrinic. Apparently, the application for compulsory liquidation of the registry is suspended in light of the investigation launched by the government.
African governments turn to China
Governments in other African countries are now also on the barricades. Companies in their countries are currently unable to obtain new IP addresses. Following a crisis meeting, 40 governments and 60 companies issued a joint statement warning of the effects of the forced closure of Afrinic requested by Cloud Innovation. This would jeopardize Africa's control over IP address allocation on the continent.
African states and companies are now also turning to China's government to “de-escalate” the threat to the Afrinic institution. Until now, the geopolitical dimension of the dispute had only been mentioned by some behind closed doors. Chinese companies are among the beneficiaries of the address lending and allocation by Cloud Innovation and its partner company Larus.
New election preparations
Parallel to the diplomatic developments, preparations are underway for another attempt to give the ailing registry a board capable of acting through a proper election. Afrinic announced a new nomination committee last week and presented it on Monday.
Instead of British lawyers, the committee now consists almost exclusively of representatives from telecommunications and digital ministries from the African member states. Under this supervision, the election will be repeated purely electronically on August 29.
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ICANN demands exclusion of election fraudsters
ICANN has also been calling for the election manipulations to be clarified for some time. In a letter to the Telecommunications Minister of Mauritius, the self-governing body for the domain name system and guardian of global IP address resources wrote that the annulment in no way makes a comprehensive investigation superfluous.
ICANN is demanding that Afrinic members involved in manipulation be excluded from the nomination process and the election. Whether they can keep their IP addresses should be discussed at a later date. For a purely electronic election, she strongly advises solid security measures.
ICANN also reserves the right to review whether Afrinic as a whole complies with the ICP-2 rules, which form the basis for the establishment of regional registries. Meanwhile, ICANN sees the application for forced liquidation as an attempt by a single member to take control of the registry to satisfy its own commercial interests.
(afl)
