In February 2027, the Supreme Court of Mauritius is expected to take up Cloud Innovation’s petition to wind up AFRINIC. At stake is who will keep track of the internet addresses used by networks across Africa. A Kenyan association that once sought donations to keep the registry running has reportedly turned to a lawyer who previously acted for the petitioner.

Cloud Innovation is asking the Supreme Court of Mauritius to appoint a liquidator of its choice for the registry that issued it 6,291,456 IPv4 addresses. The first block began at 154.80.0.0. AFRINIC allocated it to Lu Heng’s Seychelles company on July 24, 2013, then issued 3 more blocks over the next 3 years. When AFRINIC moved to reclaim the addresses in 2021, Cloud Innovation obtained an order blocking their recovery. By July 2025, after a failed board election, the company was arguing that liquidation was the only way to protect the networks AFRINIC serves.

A puisne judge of the Supreme Court familiar with the case, interviewed in Mauritius, said the petition was expected back before the Court in February 2027. According to the judge and other sources close to the matter on the island, the Court reinstated the petition over the objections of AFRINIC and ICANN after Cloud Innovation’s lawyer explained his earlier absence. The Court lists the petition as case SC/COM/PET/000508/2025. No published order reviewed for this investigation fixes a February date. The Court has yet to decide whether to wind up AFRINIC.

Network operators have a stake in that decision every time they expand. Since 2005, AFRINIC has allocated internet addresses and kept the record of which networks may use them across Africa and the Indian Ocean. Cloud Innovation says a court-supervised handover would protect those services. Days after the petition was filed, ICANN, the body that recognizes regional registries, asked the receiver about backups of AFRINIC’s records. Even with a copy in hand, a Kenyan provider needing addresses for new customers would still need someone with the authority to issue them.

Kenyan operators have already had to defend those services once. When Cloud Innovation’s litigation froze AFRINIC’s bank accounts in 2021, Technology Service Providers of Kenya (TESPOK) backed an appeal to cover salaries and keep the registry operating. Now the association has reportedly retained Mauritian barrister Fazal Shipkolye, who is said to have acted for Cloud Innovation. If so, he can skip the introduction to the petitioner. What protection will he seek for Kenyan networks if the Court grants Cloud Innovation’s request?

What TESPOK Brings to Court

TESPOK said more than 80 of its members depended on AFRINIC. In 2021 it thanked Eddy Kayihura, then AFRINIC’s chief executive, for keeping those operators informed during the freeze. A year later, Cloud Innovation called for Kayihura’s resignation. TESPOK also signed the brief opposing liquidation that I coordinated for the Internet Society’s Togo Chapter.

If TESPOK retained Shipkolye, the association made a serious strategic mistake. It runs the Kenya Internet Exchange Point in Nairobi and can tell the Court how its members would cope if registry services were interrupted. Its choice of counsel risks distracting from that evidence. Fiona Asonga, TESPOK’s chief executive, is 1 of the 8 elected AFRINIC directors whose removal Cloud Innovation is seeking. The records reviewed do not establish that Asonga personally selected counsel.

Shipkolye was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn and worked for the Mauritian newspaper L’Express as a reporter and editorial writer before chairing the National Remuneration Board. His work for Cloud Innovation reportedly dates to 2022 and is said to have included holding a power of attorney and sending cease-and-desist letters on the company’s behalf. One power of attorney quoted in a Mauritian judgment names Dushyant Ramdhur and concerns a 2021 case. I found no corresponding instrument naming Shipkolye or record that Lu personally retained him.

So which Cloud Innovation cases did Shipkolye argue? The July 2022 membership judgment, 2022 SCJ 253, lists N. S. Singla and R. Gulbul as the company’s courtroom counsel. The September 2023 receivership ruling again identifies Singla and Gulbul, instructed by attorney D. Ramdhur. A November 2024 court transcript names Gulbul as the advocate appearing for Cloud Innovation. None lists Shipkolye. I found no published judgment naming him as the company’s courtroom advocate.

In the winding-up case, the May 14, 2026 ruling identifies TESPOK as a creditor whose affidavit the judge considered when granting ICANN leave to intervene. TESPOK was subsequently identified in my reporting as the second intervening party, with Shipkolye as its lawyer. The May ruling does not name him. TESPOK therefore has a documented interest of its own, quite apart from either AFRINIC’s defense or the petitioner’s case for dissolution.

That distinction matters if TESPOK has to challenge the petitioner’s account of what liquidation would mean for Kenyan networks. Mauritius’s Code of Ethics for Barristers addresses the risk that information entrusted by a former client could be exposed or give a new client an undue advantage. I found no ruling disqualifying Shipkolye, no finding of professional misconduct and no public account of the checks TESPOK made. Its members have a simpler question. What instructions did their association give its lawyer if protecting Kenyan operators required him to challenge his former client?

The 6 Million Addresses Behind the Case

Between 2013 and 2016, AFRINIC issued 4 blocks of IPv4 addresses to Cloud Innovation, a Seychelles company controlled by Lu Heng. John Curran, president of ARIN, the regional registry for North America, published the block identifiers and dates. The first block, issued in July 2013, began at 154.80.0.0. The last, issued in September 2016, began at 154.192.0.0. The 2 smaller blocks each held 1,048,576 addresses. The larger pair held 2,097,152 apiece. Together they came to 6,291,456 addresses issued by the institution the company would eventually ask a court to dissolve.

An IP address lets networks direct traffic to its destination. AFRINIC is 1 of 5 regional registries responsible for keeping internet numbers unique. Addresses in the older IPv4 system are scarce, and networks that still use it pay for access. In January 2026, APNIC’s chief scientist Geoff Huston reported transactions averaging about $22 per address in one broker’s data over the preceding 40 days. Prices varied with the size of the block. Multiplying that price by 6,291,456 would give a misleading valuation. The blocks were allocated under a contract granting rights of use, and the sample cannot tell us what Cloud Innovation’s customers paid.

The dispute turned on a promise made when the addresses were issued. In March 2021 correspondence, AFRINIC said some uses no longer matched the needs Cloud Innovation had originally described. It asked which services were being provided, and in which countries. Curran later reported finding routes advertised from Hong Kong and the United States for parts of address space whose larger blocks were announced from South Africa. Those observations tell a reader how the routes were advertised. They cannot locate every customer using the numbers.

Cloud Innovation had already set out its position in writing. It said it assigned addresses according to customer need and kept records. In its reading, AFRINIC could verify that numbers were being used but could not dictate where or how customers used them after allocation. AFRINIC read the agreement differently. It maintained that continued use had to match the purpose the applicant had justified. The difference mattered to anyone who leased an address or bought connectivity downstream. A supplier could promise continued service only if the registry continued to recognize its right to the numbers.

In February 2026, AFRINIC’s head of capacity building put the remaining unallocated IPv4 pool at 773,376. He wanted operators to look to IPv6, whose much larger address space relieves the pressure on new allocations. It does not settle a dispute over who may use the millions of IPv4 addresses the registry has already issued.

What Lu Heng Told Network Operators

On September 20, 2014, as African network operators debated whether internet addresses were leaving the continent, Lu Heng wrote to AFRINIC’s policy list. His own address range had come up in the discussion. He said the addresses were being used in Africa and that his business was investing there. He challenged his critics to produce evidence and said suspected wrongdoing belonged with law enforcement. The exchange records the assurance Lu gave his peers at the time. He did not identify the individual networks using the addresses.

There was a distinction between where an address was used and where the customer sat. The Associated Press reported in 2021 that, in emails accompanying his 2013 request, Lu had told AFRINIC that his customers would be in China. He described plans to provide virtual private networks that could reach sites blocked there. Lu told the AP that Cloud Innovation left the VPN business around 2016 or 2017 and began leasing address space. That account offers his explanation for how the business changed after he made the 2014 statement.

On May 6, 2025, Suriya Kamon posted a request to the North American Network Operators’ Group on behalf of a small internet provider running short of IPv4 addresses. Even a block of 256 would do, Kamon wrote, provided the operator could document its right to announce it. Lu replied that morning, directing Kamon to LARUS.net and offering automated delivery within 24 hours. He suggested that either LARUS or Cogent was probably the largest leasing provider. That was Lu’s estimate. The post gives no market-share figures, names no address block and does not say whether Kamon took up the offer.

The 2014 message concerns use of an address range in Africa. The 2025 message shows Lu personally marketing leases through LARUS to an operator that needed addresses. It does not identify any of Cloud Innovation’s 4 AFRINIC blocks as the source of a lease. Later in the same public exchange, Lu set out his view that networks should have greater control over their addresses. The question for AFRINIC was how far such control could extend under the agreement the holder had signed.

In October 2026, ICANN published applications for new domain endings. Seychelles-based Innovation Service Limited submitted 10 applications, including .faq, .larus and .real. Its ownership disclosure identifies Heng Lu as its ultimate controller. The .real application was in pre-evaluation processing. These were bids to run name registries, a different business from issuing IP addresses.

When AFRINIC Could Not Pay Its Bills

On July 8, 2021, AFRINIC announced it would reclaim the company’s number resources. Cloud Innovation obtained a July 13 order restraining termination of its membership and reclamation of its addresses. AFRINIC’s chief executive undertook to comply. On July 23 a judge provisionally attached up to $50 million of AFRINIC’s funds at 2 Mauritian banks at the company’s request. The $50 million in AFRINIC’s audited accounts was the ceiling of the attachment. No damages of that amount had been awarded.

On August 4, the African IXP Association wrote to the Mauritian authorities. It then represented 47 internet exchange points in 35 countries. Its members operate the places where networks hand traffic to each other. They warned that AFRINIC needed money for staff, bandwidth and the data centers housing its equipment. AFRINIC’s year-end accounts say that it could not meet financial commitments and received $504,238 from other organizations. A judge set aside the attachment on October 15. The freeze had lasted long enough to make the registry dependent on outside help.

Cloud Innovation did not win every application, and neither did AFRINIC. On February 14, 2022, 2 judges dismissed a Cloud Innovation appeal with costs because the company already had interim protection in another matter and the appeal offered no practical benefit. In July, in a different proceeding, Justice S.B.A. Hamuth-Laulloo rejected AFRINIC’s argument that the application was abusive. The company had received a new termination letter, she found, and the merits of the case still had to be decided. These were rulings on distinct applications concerning the same scarce resources.

The consolidated financial report shows what it cost the institution to keep going to court. AFRINIC recognized $1,250,527 in external legal expenses in 2022 and $1,133,630 in 2023. That amounts to $2,384,157, roughly 20% of its $12.09 million in member revenue over the 2 years. AFRINIC still reported a surplus in both years. The accounts do not assign every dollar to a particular litigant. They do show how much of the money paid by network operators went toward lawyers.

By June 2022, AFRINIC lacked enough directors to form a quorum. Kayihura’s term as chief executive ended that November. In September 2023, on Cloud Innovation’s application, the Supreme Court placed AFRINIC in receivership. A 2024 appellate judgment held that the appeal brought in AFRINIC’s name had lacked the necessary authority. In February 2025 the court appointed Gowtamsingh Dabee as receiver and charged him with organizing an election. Restoring an elected board was supposed to give the institution someone who could speak for it.

The Election That Cost $931,849

On June 23, 2025, a representative of an address holder arrived to vote in Mauritius and discovered someone had already voted on the organization’s behalf. The organization had authorized nobody to do so, according to the Internet Service Providers’ Association of South Africa. The association said participants had arrived with more than 800 purported powers of attorney and that its lawyer reported the disputed vote to police that evening. Its statement did not identify who cast the ballot. Cloud Innovation acknowledged helping members participate by proxy and said cancelling an election over what it described as 1 contested proxy disenfranchised people who had voted properly.

Dabee annulled the election. AFRINIC’s expense schedule puts its cost at $931,849. It lists $407,518 against Judgement Limited and $225,000 against GD Corporate as the receiver’s fee. The September replacement cost $111,576, including $75,000 against GD Corporate and $19,600 for its voting platform. Nearly 9 out of every 10 dollars spent on those 2 elections went to the one that produced no board. The schedule identifies payees but does not explain why the first exercise cost more than 8 times as much as the second.

The September election returned 8 directors. Mauritius’s Electoral Commissioner attended under a court order, according to AFRINIC’s annual report. Smart Africa said 7 of the 8 winners were candidates its coalition had endorsed. Cloud Innovation challenged the receiver’s exclusion of proxies. Article 12.12 of AFRINIC’s bylaws permits proxy voting at annual general meetings and limits the number of proxies any member may carry in an election to 5. Whether the rules of the court-supervised election could displace that provision goes to the authority of every director elected under them.

In October 2025, Dabee applied to end the receivership. Cloud Innovation opposed the application and disputed the directors’ appointments. That challenge hangs over the board even as it tries to defend AFRINIC. A board deciding whether to pay for a defense, retain a lawyer or authorize an affidavit faces an obvious difficulty if its opponents dispute its power to act at all. There is also evidence of what these directors actually did. In its March 2026 update, the board said it was contesting the winding-up petition and resisting a separate attempt to stop new allocations. That record supports an account of directors acting under pressure. It gives no basis for saying individual directors abandoned the defense.

The Promise the Receiver Signed

Before either election, Dabee signed an undertaking dated June 10, 2025 concerning Cloud Innovation’s membership. AFRINIC itself had asked the Supreme Court to vary an April order. On June 11, Justice C. Green Jokhoo directed that AFRINIC enter Cloud Innovation as a member under section 91 of the Companies Act. She recorded Dabee’s promise to correct AFRINIC’s records within 15 days. Once AFRINIC acted, the Registrar of Companies would have 14 days to replace entries made under the April order. The written order bound the registry to a sequence of steps it had itself proposed.

On June 19, in a separate proceeding brought by ICANN, a judge ordered the receiver to inform members that Cloud Innovation’s earlier registration as a Registered Member was erroneous and had been removed. The ruling described the company as a resource member. The judge also required an explanation of how the nominations committee had been constituted. ICANN’s public account describes the steps it sought to protect the vote. Read together, the decisions raise a precise question. Could the Registrar comply with the June 11 order by entering the company as a member without giving it the director-linked status the June 19 ruling rejected?

An October 9, 2026 court instrument reproduced the April order as varied on June 11. An October 28 extract from the Registrar, republished by Cloud Innovation, listed the 8 directors with start dates of September 12, 2025, and Cloud Innovation with a start date of October 9, 2026. Asonga’s name appears on the same page as the company’s. AFRINIC said it learned of the entry on October 28, 19 days after the effective date, and had not been consulted.

On October 29, the receiver demanded removal of Cloud Innovation’s entry. He copied the prime minister, the technology minister, the attorney general and the State Law Office. AFRINIC says the June 19 ruling required correction of the registered-member classification. Cloud Innovation says the June 11 direction to enter it as a member still stands. On November 3 the company announced that it would seek Dabee’s removal and contempt sanctions. Its statement records an intention to go to court. I found no ruling holding Dabee in contempt.

Dabee’s own explanation matters here. In a communiqué issued with AFRINIC in June 2025, he said the Registrar had made the original classification prematurely and that he had already taken steps to correct it. That explains why he could sign an undertaking to register the company and still oppose treating it as a director. It leaves a narrower question unanswered. What entry did he instruct AFRINIC to make within the 15 days he had promised, and when did he notify the Registrar? Neither the signed undertaking nor the October notice as described by AFRINIC supplies that dated instruction. It would do more to settle the question of his conduct than either side’s description of his loyalties.

The Questions Dabee Still Has to Answer

Gowtamsingh Dabee was appointed to restore an elected board. By July 2025, two separate institutions were asking whether he had handled that responsibility fairly. On July 16, ICANN’s president wrote to Dabee and the Mauritian technology minister. ICANN had asked whether anyone outside the election machinery had obtained the list of eligible voters, and whether representatives of Cloud Innovation or the Number Resource Society had taken part in discussions about disputed powers of attorney. Dabee had replied. ICANN described his answers as sparse, said he had asked that his responses not be published, and renewed its request for information about backups of the registry’s records.

There was a defense on the record. In their joint communiqué, Dabee and AFRINIC said he had sought a neutral nominations panel, that it took decisions independently and that cancelling the entire nominations process would have delayed the election. The June 19 ruling allowed that process to continue and required an explanation of how the panel had been selected. The election accounts raise a different question. AFRINIC lists $225,000 against GD Corporate for the receiver’s fee in June and $75,000 for September. The schedule identifies the payee. It does not show who agreed to those fees or what additional work justified the June charge. Those are questions about stewardship of members’ money. The figures alone do not establish that Dabee personally received either sum.

The scrutiny also came from Mauritius itself. Presidential Proclamation No. 10 of July 25, 2025, published in the Government Gazette, directed an inspector to examine whether Dabee and his predecessor had been properly appointed and whether they had acted in the interests of AFRINIC and its members in court and during the election. Its terms also called for examination of possible false statements or falsification of records. Cloud Innovation challenged the inspection. Its lawyer argued that the executive was intruding on judicial authority. The appointed inspector resigned in August after an injunction suspended his mandate. The proclamation identifies questions serious enough to warrant a statutory inquiry. It supplies no verdict against Dabee.

Members could judge his record more fairly if they could see the instruction implementing his June undertaking, the basis for the fees and an account of who had access to the voter list. The published records reviewed here leave those questions open. That is a reason to scrutinize the receiver’s decisions even when he and Cloud Innovation now find themselves on opposite sides.

What Mike Silber Can Decide in January

Mike Silber is due to take office on January 1, 2027. His appointment notice contains an important detail. The elected board appointed him with the receiver’s consent, after a search they initiated together. Silber is a South African attorney, a former ICANN director and a former vice chair of the Address Supporting Organization’s Address Council. AFRINIC asked him to restore operational stability and rebuild members’ trust. It did not announce that the receivership would end on his first day.

Silber will have real decisions to make. Under article 17.4 of AFRINIC’s bylaws, the chief executive manages day-to-day business, sets pay and employment conditions for staff below executive level, exercises additional powers delegated by the board and reports to it. Article 15 puts the company’s affairs under the board’s supervision. The board’s earlier interim arrangement illustrates the extra layer of receivership introduced. It appointed a management committee with Dabee’s consent and instructed the committee to report to both him and the board. Silber’s appointment notice gives no comparable list of matters reserved to him or to the receiver after January 1.

Consider an internet provider seeking more addresses. Silber could direct staff to process the request under AFRINIC policy. Who could give the final approval? In March 2026 the board said that Dabee had been approving allocations and assignments after the applications went through the usual process. Cloud Innovation disputed his authority to do even that and separately sought an injunction against new allocations. An incoming CEO cannot promise the provider that his signature will replace the receiver’s while that arrangement remains in force. Nor does the filing of an injunction application establish that a judge granted it.

Only the court can decide the pending application to end the receivership. In March the board said the application had been heard and judgment was awaited. On October 31, AFRINIC still described Dabee as its court-appointed receiver. As of November 4, I had not located a published discharge order. A ruling before January could change the division of responsibility. Without one, Silber can run the office and exercise the powers lawfully delegated to him. He cannot discharge Dabee, settle the legal validity of the board that appointed him, or decide whether the company he has been hired to lead will survive.

Who Would Be Left on the Register

AFRINIC is a Mauritian private company limited by guarantee. It has no share capital. Under its bylaws, elected directors and the chief executive qualify as Registered Members on prescribed terms, including a commitment of up to 500 Mauritian rupees on winding up. Resource Members are the organizations that establish a need for internet numbers, sign an agreement and pay fees. They have electoral rights and a say in changes to the bylaws. An operator can therefore hold addresses and vote without appearing in the same category as a director.

That distinction puts a limit on Cloud Innovation’s call to register every eligible Resource Member. Under sections 269 and 270 of the Companies Act, relevant shareholder provisions apply to a guarantee company without share capital, with references to shareholders read as references to members. A private company generally may have no more than 50 shareholders, subject to rules for joint holdings and specified employee members. At the end of 2025 AFRINIC counted 1,801 local internet registries, 699 end-user members and 6 associates. How could roughly 2,500 resource holders enter a statutory register subject to that ceiling? The June order names a single company.

Cloud Innovation accepts that its director-linked classification was wrong. It says correcting the category did not extinguish its right to appear on the corporate register. AFRINIC takes the opposite view of the October entry. In May the registry had acknowledged considering a request for judicial clarification about which register the order meant. The distinction becomes urgent because Cloud Innovation wants the September directors removed through legal proceedings while its own name stays.

If its demand succeeded on those terms and no other names were added, Cloud Innovation would be the only name left in the October membership table. That would give a single commercial operator extraordinary leverage in any dispute over who speaks for the corporation. The register alone does not vest the board’s powers in that operator, eliminate members’ voting rights or override the receiver. Those powers come from the bylaws and the court’s orders. Nor does the company say it wants permanent exclusivity. Its stated position is that others should have the same protection. The risk lies in who could act while they seek it.

A proposed constitution could change that balance again. AFRINIC’s review committee opened a third consultation in August 2026. Cloud Innovation argues that the draft strengthens directors’ statutory protections and makes it harder for resource holders to put proposals before members. The election challenge and the winding-up petition remain separate proceedings. A ruling on the future of the corporation need not settle who was entitled to govern it.

What a Liquidator Could Inherit

Cloud Innovation’s July 2025 proposal envisaged a reformed registry or interim custodian taking over. The company argued that a court-supervised transition would protect networks better than continued uncertainty after the failed election. ICANN’s president, Kurt Erik Lindqvist, saw another possibility. In a July 16 letter, he raised the concern that a member might be seeking control for commercial reasons. He asked about backups of registration records and copies held in escrow. Those requests give the question of continuity a precise meaning. Who could recover the records and operate them if the institution responsible for them ceased to function?

The Court also received a friend-of-the-court brief on July 23, 2025. Its published list of supporters names 105 distinct organizations and 59 individuals. TESPOK appears at No. 44. In my capacity as president of the Internet Society’s Togo Chapter, I initiated and coordinated the brief. We argued that the Court could hear Cloud Innovation’s financial and voting claims while keeping the registry in operation for the banks, universities and providers that depend on it. We asked for “a remedial approach aimed at institutional rehabilitation”, including supervised reform and a transparent election overseen by a neutral expert.

The Registrar’s extract lists $21,964,710 in corporate assets at December 31, 2025. Under article 22.2 of AFRINIC’s bylaws, surplus assets left after debts and liabilities are satisfied must pass to institutions with similar purposes. Members cannot divide that surplus among themselves. And clause 6(d) of the registration agreement expressly excludes treating number resources as property. Cloud Innovation could win a winding-up order without acquiring the addresses allocated across Africa. The danger for operators lies in what happens to the authority that verifies who may use each block.

There is already a regulated process for transferring eligible resources within the region. A secondary market becomes dangerous when an intermediary offers rights it cannot substantiate. If oversight failed, for example, 2 providers could pay for the same block and discover the competing claim only when they tried to use it. AFRINIC’s own 2021 audit found that 2,371,584 addresses had been taken from its pool and attributed to organizations without justification. The audit concerns a separate episode. It illustrates the cost of unreliable records. It supplies no evidence of a plan by Cloud Innovation to create an illicit market.

The relationship between the companies also figured in a May 14 interim order. On AFRINIC’s application a judge restrained Cloud Innovation from misrepresenting that the court had authorized leasing or commercializing AFRINIC-allocated number resources, and directed the removal of statements suggesting such approval. Cloud Innovation said LARUS was a separate entity and disputed AFRINIC’s characterization. The order set a May 28 return date. It did not decide the lawfulness of leasing in general.

Lu Heng’s Legal Campaign and Public Diplomacy

Cloud Innovation’s court filings target different points at which AFRINIC can act. The 2021 attachment restricted access to cash. The challenge to the September election contests who can speak for the company. The application to stop new allocations reaches the service operators need. The winding-up petition asks whether AFRINIC should continue to exist. This is the sense in which the campaign can be described as lawfare. Each contested power creates another decision the registry may have to defend before it can act. The company says it is enforcing membership rights and seeking an orderly transition. A 2022 judgment rejected an allegation of abuse in the particular application before the judge. The effect of the litigation on AFRINIC can be documented without presuming that each filing was improper.

Outside court, Lu’s address business speaks to the people who run networks. At NANOG 98 in Miami, held October 19 to 21, 2026, LARUS Limited identified itself as host sponsor and invited operators to its booth to discuss IPv4 capacity and routing. The named sponsor was LARUS. Cloud Innovation is the petitioner in Mauritius. In May 2025, Lu had personally offered a small provider IPv4 leases on NANOG’s mailing list. Sponsorship gave the business a public role among the engineers who might become its customers. Nothing in the sponsorship announcement indicates that NANOG endorsed the petition in Mauritius.

The government audience has a different interest. In a 2025 ministerial declaration sent to ICANN, African telecommunications ministers had already expressed alarm about the liquidation petition and backed continuity for AFRINIC. In late October 2026 the African Union’s programme for its Libreville meeting explicitly listed internet governance and AFRINIC among the issues for discussion. The ministerial session opened on October 29. The registry’s future was thus before officials who could publicly support its continuity. I could not independently verify the reported presence of a delegation representing Lu. The AU records I reviewed identify neither a representative of Cloud Innovation or LARUS nor any meeting or request on their behalf.

The company’s own November 3 statement provides a documented example of political outreach. Cloud Innovation announced that it would ask the Mauritian prime minister to initiate a statutory inquiry into AFRINIC’s membership. It expressly said it was not asking him to dictate the result. That request illustrates why the distinction matters. A reader can examine what Cloud Innovation asked of the Mauritian government in the company’s own words. In Libreville, the AU’s published account establishes what ministers discussed. It does not identify anyone lobbying them for Lu.

The Question Operators Need Answered Before February

On October 28, 2025, technology minister Avinash Ramtohul told the Mauritian National Assembly that no new IP addresses could be issued between November 2024 and July 2025 because of the receivership. He said Mauritius had risked losing the registry to another African jurisdiction. In a July communiqué, Dabee had told members that exceptional allocations resumed on July 1 to clear a backlog. For operators who needed addresses to expand, delay was already more than a hypothetical consequence of the legal battle.

Yet AFRINIC’s 2025 annual report records 10,496 IPv4 addresses issued in the first quarter and 70,144 in the second, a total of 80,640 before July. It also records no new member activations from January through May, followed by 44 in June. Admitting a member and issuing numbers to an existing member are different operations. The published tables do not identify who received the addresses, when their requests were approved, or how long the unsuccessful applicants waited. Those missing dates prevent a confident reconciliation of the figures with the minister’s account.

Consider what happens when a university changes its internet provider. It may need to update a routing authorization so that other networks can verify the new provider’s right to announce its address block. At the end of 2025, 844 AFRINIC members used its routing certification service. The court case in Mauritius does not interrupt the university’s connection. The difficulty comes the day someone needs to change an authorization, correct an error or settle a competing claim, and no institution can say who is empowered to do it.

Africa’s operators have an interest in the February proceedings whether or not they take a position on Cloud Innovation’s contractual rights. They can document how long requests sat unanswered, who could approve a change and what a failed handover would cost. TESPOK has already put an affidavit before the court. Its members have reason to ask what protection it seeks and how it is keeping their representation independent. ICANN has already asked for a recoverable copy of the registry’s records. Members have reason to ask who would be authorized to use that copy.

The judge can hear the parties in February and decide the petition later. But if the court ultimately orders AFRINIC wound up, a successor would inherit the needs of thousands of networks on its first morning. For the university changing providers, the test of any transition is simple. Who will be able to authorize the change that day, and how will the rest of the internet know to trust the answer?