Five years for the network

What we did. In March 2021 AFRINIC’s management gave us 30 days to answer what the Court later called “purported breaches”, or face termination at its “sole discretion”. In July 2021 its Board resolved to end our membership. Three times we went to court, and three times the Judge in Chambers stopped them: on 29 March 2021, on 13 July 2021 and, until the dispute is finally decided, on 3 December 2021.

What the Court said. When AFRINIC’s management asked the Court to treat our applications as an abuse of its process, the Court refused: Cloud Innovation “cannot be taxed for resorting to an independent court to safeguard its rights”.

Why it matters. A registry that can put out a member at its sole discretion holds every network hostage. We fought for a rule that protects every member: no network is put out at a registry’s whim.

• The order of 29 March 2021
• The order of 13 July 2021
• The order of 3 December 2021
• The ruling of 19 July 2022

What we did. AFRINIC’s Board resolution of July 2021 would have taken back the addresses our customers’ networks run on. Within days we had an order: the Judge in Chambers restrained AFRINIC from freezing or reclaiming the resources allocated to us and from cutting off our access to its WHOIS database.

What we stand for. Secure ownership of lawfully held IP addresses, continuity of use, transferability and the freedom to change registry. Membership of AFRINIC and ownership of addresses are distinct rights, and we defend both. No administrator, and no majority of members, should take another operator’s addresses through a governance decision.

Why it matters. Operators build the networks and bear the consequences; a registry keeps the record. Those now in charge of AFRINIC have ratified a policy that keeps AFRINIC-issued addresses from leaving the region. We stand for the opposite: addresses that stay with the networks that use them, wherever those networks go.

• The order of 13 July 2021
• Our statement of 1 November 2026
• The locked exit

What we did. In September 2023, with the terms of four of AFRINIC’s directors about to end, we asked the Supreme Court to protect AFRINIC itself. We feared, as the Court recorded, that AFRINIC could be relocated outside the jurisdiction of Mauritius.

What the Court said. It found the orders we sought “fully justified, reasonable, and fair”. It restrained and prohibited AFRINIC from relocating and from subjecting itself to a takeover, merger, restructuring or management control “in any manner whatsoever”. It appointed the Official Receiver to hold the ring, preserve AFRINIC’s assets and the value of its business, and see that an election under AFRINIC’s constitution gives it a proper Board.

Why it matters. AFRINIC and its assets belong to its members. We made sure no one could move it, merge it or take it over before its members elected a Board.

• The judgment of 12 September 2023
• The orders, page 9 (PDF)
• Our statement

What we did. In May 2021 we petitioned the Supreme Court to have AFRINIC’s register of members rectified to include us. On 4 April 2025 the Court granted the order. On 11 June 2025, on AFRINIC’s own application, it directed that we be entered as AFRINIC’s member under section 91 of the Companies Act, in the category of Member, and recorded AFRINIC’s written undertaking to rectify its records within 15 days. When the 15 days passed, we executed the judgment. A Supreme Court rule of 9 October 2026 restated the order, and on 28 October 2026 the Registrar of Companies’ record of AFRINIC listed us as a member.

What we ask. The same for every Resource Member: recognition under company law, an entry in the register and the shareholder-equivalent rights that come with it. If thousands of members qualify, put thousands of names on the register.

Why it matters. On the Registrar’s record, AFRINIC’s only other members are its eight directors. A members’ organisation belongs to its members, not to the few who sit on its Board.

• The order of 4 April 2025
• The order of 11 June 2025
• The rule of 9 October 2026
• The Registrar’s record
• Our statement

What we did. The receivership we obtained in 2023 was there to deliver an election under AFRINIC’s constitution. When the deadline set on appeal could not be met, we went back to court, and on our motion the Supreme Court ordered the election held by the end of June 2025. In January 2025 we called for a free and fair election under judicial supervision. When the Receiver annulled the entire election over “one disputed proxy”, and his new rules banned the proxy voting AFRINIC’s constitution allows, we objected in public and in writing.

Why it matters. AFRINIC belongs to its members, and its members elect its Board. One disputed vote should never silence hundreds of valid ones.

• The order of 25 November 2024
• Our call of January 2025
• Our objection
• The new election rules

What we did. In 2025 the executive sent an inspector into AFRINIC under a Proclamation. In our constitutional complaint we said its measures would call into question judgments the courts had already delivered and set up a parallel system of justice, and we went to court on an urgent application. In 2026, when AFRINIC’s Receiver asked the Registrar to strike us from the register, copying ministers and citing no court order, we put him on notice: the executive cannot suspend, vary or neutralise an order of the Supreme Court.

What the Court said. On 7 August 2025 the Judge in Chambers restrained the inspector from carrying out any inspection under that mandate.

Why it matters. This is the constitutional separation of powers. A judgment is enforced or appealed in court, and ministers do not undo it. We act within the law and through the courts, and we hold everyone else to the same.

• The order of 7 August 2025
• Our communiqué of 2 November 2026
• The Receiver’s demand

What we did. In June 2022 we offered AFRINIC’s management confidential mediation without conditions. It did not even acknowledge the offer. In July 2025, with ICANN itself warning that AFRINIC’s ability to function as a registry was in jeopardy, we asked the leaders of ICANN and the Number Resource Organization to designate a successor registry, so that African networks keep their registry services without interruption.

Why it matters. What must survive is the record and the services networks depend on, not the people who happen to control the registry. We put the running network first.

• Our offer of mediation
• Our proposal

The rule of law, a democratic society, people’s freedom and the constitutional separation of powers. They are the foundations of a modern society, and they bind those who run the Internet’s number registries as much as anyone. Those who have controlled AFRINIC reached for state power over people and networks. We went to court, won where it mattered and put every step on the record. That is the difference.

• The pattern we are correcting
• What we stand for
• The public record