Cloud Innovation’s name appears again in a copy of AFRINIC’s Mauritian register dated October 28, 2026, following earlier assurances that a disputed entry had been removed. The board must now explain how the company came to be listed among AFRINIC’s members, who authorised the registration and what rights it confers. At stake is the accountability of the institution entrusted with managing Africa’s internet number resources.

Based in Mauritius, the African Network Information Centre, or AFRINIC, is the sole recognized regional internet registry for the Africa and Indian Ocean service region. This nonprofit organization distributes and manages IP addresses and the numbers identifying autonomous networks. An IP address allows communications to be routed to their destination on the internet. AFRINIC allocates resources to operators and organizations that run networks; operators then assign addresses to their networks and customers. It is therefore one of the five regional components of the global numbering system, essential to reliable connectivity and the continent’s digital development.

Yet this institution became paralyzed by a governance crisis and successive legal battles, notably over oversight of the addresses allocated to Cloud Innovation, a company controlled by businessman Lu Heng. Proceedings initiated by Cloud Innovation led the Supreme Court of Mauritius to appoint an Official Receiver on September 12, 2023. This receivership was intended to preserve assets, organize elections to reconstitute the board and enable the appointment of a chief executive. It was designed to restore functional governance. As it has continued, it has become a central issue in the crisis.

Gowtamsingh Dabee took over this assignment on February 12, 2025. His background raises an issue of impartiality that requires precise explanations. In his public response in September 2025, he acknowledges being a non-executive director of AAA Global Services, a management company whose former clients included Cloud Innovation, while denying any personal involvement in the latter. That indirect professional connection places the impartiality of his assignment at the heart of the demand for accountability addressed to the board. The board must explain the checks and safeguards put in place.

Today, Cloud Innovation’s name appears again in a copy of a Mauritian register extract dated October 28, 2026, among AFRINIC’s members, with a start date of October 9. Its presence follows the public assurances in 2025 about the removal of a disputed entry. It proves neither a takeover nor that the Receiver made that particular filing. It nevertheless requires the board to explain the acts carried out, the rights recognized and each person’s role. Resolving the crisis now requires verifiable records, an effective end to the receivership and full accountability by the board to its members.

What the Registers Reveal About AFRINIC’s Crisis

The recent extract also lists the eight directors. The board must have the Registrar authenticate it, obtain the filing history and clarify the legal meaning of each entry. An administrative document becomes politically sensitive when those affected lack a shared explanation of its consequences. Cloud Innovation’s presence must therefore be analyzed through the court orders and applicable bylaws, rather than the competing interpretations circulating within the community.

The history of this entry predates October 2026. A May 15, 2025, extract published by MyBroadband already listed Cloud Innovation among the members, dated April 4. A copy of the June 11, 2025, order circulated by LARUS then shows a modification of the April 4 decision, in proceedings where AFRINIC, under receivership, was the applicant and Cloud Innovation the respondent. The court orders an entry in the register of members under section 91 of the Companies Act, together with removal and correction of earlier entries. The Receiver had given a written undertaking to rectify the records.

That sequence explains part of the legal mechanism without identifying who made the filing reflected in the recent extract. Moreover, the available order is a copy published by an interested party. The board must reconstruct the complete chain of decisions, instructions and formalities. It must also clarify the legal advice on which it relies, within legitimate limits of legal privilege. The purpose is to make understandable a situation rendered opaque by accumulated proceedings and to enable members to verify its consequences.

Public communication has not resolved this ambiguity. ICANN’s June 20, 2025, account reported removal of Cloud Innovation’s erroneous entry as a registered member, while the company remained a resource member. On May 9, 2026, AFRINIC identified an interpretive difficulty between its resource-related register and statutory register, and contemplated judicial clarification. Those statements must be reconciled with the acts actually carried out. The board must explain what followed that proposed clarification and the significance it now assigns to each status.

The distinction matters because AFRINIC is a company limited by guarantee. For such companies without share capital, section 269 of the Companies Act adapts certain references to shareholders and shares to members and their register. An entry therefore does not prove the purchase of an equity stake. AFRINIC’s bylaws distinguish several categories of membership, including resource members who already have participation and voting rights. Any additional effects on information, legal remedies or governance must be established precisely, without assuming a board seat or veto.

The available documents do not establish deliberate lying by the Receiver. They reveal a continuing need to clarify the relationship between judicial acts and public assurances. In its July 16, 2025, letter, ICANN considered the answers it had received inadequate and said it was respecting the Receiver’s request for confidentiality. A community institution cannot indefinitely operate on explanations available to only a few interlocutors. To dispel suspicions of double dealing, the board must publish the undertakings, how they were implemented and the specific reasons for any limits on disclosure.

The indirect professional connection between the Receiver and a company that served Cloud Innovation must likewise be clarified through records. The board must obtain the dates of the commercial relationship, the services provided, the responsibilities exercised and the relevant declarations of interests. It must specify the checks conducted at appointment and the impartiality safeguards put in place. The community will then be able to assess the relationship’s actual significance without conflating a documented fact with an allegation of collusion that remains unproven.

The impartiality of a receivership must be open to documentary scrutiny. A past commercial relationship does not prove misconduct, and public criticism is not a conviction. It can nevertheless justify independent scrutiny of measures taken to prevent conflicts of interest. That scrutiny should address the decisions, the information available when they were made and their consistency with the court’s mandate. It would protect both the institution and the individuals concerned against a controversy sustained by the absence of accessible records.

The Receiver must leave office through the prescribed judicial process. It must nevertheless be recalled that the joint statement of October 13, 2025 announced an application to end the receivership filed on October 8. In March 2026, the board said Cloud Innovation opposed his discharge. The issue is therefore the conclusion of a proceeding already initiated. The board must publish its current status, explain the obstacles and prepare a complete handover of records. Stability cannot become the justification for a transition with no discernible end.

Lu Heng and the Mechanisms of External Influence

Cloud Innovation’s position is best understood first through the resources involved. The four blocks documented by ARIN’s president in 2021 contain 6,291,456 IPv4 addresses allocated between 2013 and 2016. As of October 28, 2026, AFRINIC’s technical registry objects for 154.80.0.0/12, 45.192.0.0/12, 156.224.0.0/11 and 154.192.0.0/11 still show active allocations to the company. That check describes their registration status. It does not measure their current use, actual location or the compliance of all services relying on them.

IPv4 addresses are a finite resource whose availability remains economically important for the networks relying on them. Leasing can generate recurring income from an initial allocation. Cloud Innovation itself identifies LARUS as its partner in supplying addresses to operators and other international customers. The debate concerns the conditions under which a resource distributed by a regional registry supports that global business, the recipient’s contractual obligations and the registry’s ability to enforce them.

AFRINIC describes Cloud Innovation as a Seychelles company controlled by Lu Heng and argues that its use of resources breached the service agreement. That is the position of a party to the litigation. Lu disputes the alleged breaches. An Associated Press investigation updated in November 2021 reported that emails accompanying his initial request referred to Chinese customers and a virtual private network service intended to bypass filtering in China. That detail prevents any claim that overseas customers must necessarily have been concealed from the outset, and is not evidence of state direction.

Entry in the register of members does not resolve this commercial and contractual dispute. LARUS invokes a judicially recognized position, while AFRINIC disputes the existence of judicial endorsement for the commercial arrangements presented. The board must defend the resources entrusted to the institution by explaining the proceedings, enforceable decisions, available remedies and costs. Promising immediate recovery of millions of addresses without an applicable decision would be irresponsible. Abandoning oversight merely because the litigation has lasted so long would equally undermine the registry’s function.

Lu Heng’s influence is not confined to holding allocations. His own website presents LARUS, NRS, BTW.Media, the LARUS Foundation and .help together. He argues there that operators should be able to change registration providers without losing their addresses. This network combines commercial activities, the production of public narratives and advocacy. Analysis must follow control relationships, funding and the interests being advanced, rather than treating every statement as coming from an actor necessarily independent of the others.

On July 11, 2025, Cloud Innovation publicly called for AFRINIC’s dissolution, presenting it as a response to the election crisis and as consistent with the concerns of global internet authorities. In its July 16 letter, ICANN rejected that association. It supported restoring governance through free and fair elections. That disagreement is central. A company benefiting from allocations may defend its rights in court, but its proposal to dissolve the institution administering them cannot be equated with the collective interest without an adversarial examination.

The Chinese dimension must be examined against that reality, with a clear distinction between economic influence and a political mandate. The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation action plan for 2025–2027 provides for deeper digital cooperation and support for Chinese companies in African infrastructure. Motolani Agbebi’s study published by the Council on Foreign Relations describes the interaction between commercial expansion, public policy and Beijing’s support within the Digital Silk Road. That strategic framework exists. It does not make every initiative by a Chinese entrepreneur attributable to the Chinese state. The risk of indirect influence nevertheless deserves serious analysis. A state can benefit from economic dependencies, commercial positions or institutional weakening without directing every operation. Here, the effects of Lu Heng’s network on AFRINIC’s autonomy must be examined, while evidence that would establish Beijing’s involvement must be sought separately. A possible convergence of interests does not prove coordination. The African response must focus on transparency and independence safeguards applicable to all external actors, regardless of nationality.

Institutional weakness is itself a strategic vulnerability. When members no longer know who decides, proceedings consume resources and public information fails to connect decisions with those responsible, the best-organized actors gain an advantage. Reducing that vulnerability requires reliable registers, declared conflicts of interest, audited accounts and effective participation. African digital sovereignty must rest on these concrete instruments, rather than depending on identity-based declarations or the expectation of external protection.

What ICANN and the Board Must Now Guarantee

Domain names provide users with readable identifiers, while IP addresses enable traffic to be routed. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers globally and maintains contractual relationships with generic domain registries. Its role is real but bounded. It participates in recognizing regional registries and works to protect the stability of the global identifier system. It cannot rewrite a Mauritian court order or unilaterally determine the contractual fate of Cloud Innovation’s addresses. That division distinguishes registry compliance oversight, which belongs to the system’s global governance, from disputes between legal entities, which follow their legal channels. Useful international intervention must strengthen AFRINIC’s ability to perform its mission and make its requirements understandable to the community.

The historical framework is ICP-2, accepted in June 2001, which sets out principles for recognizing regional registries. On December 24, 2024, ICANN’s board ratified implementation and assessment procedures. They confirm registries’ continuing compliance obligations and ICANN’s role in examining failures and restoring compliance. The decision nevertheless specifies that those procedures do not create formal mechanisms for derecognition and transition to a successor. Those belong to the separate ICP-2 revision process.

The procedures already ratified therefore provide a basis for seeking documented compliance without awaiting the reform. For AFRINIC, this should lead to public tracking of corrective measures and observed progress, while respecting protected information. ICANN should explain the commitments requested, the answers obtained and the criteria used to assess implementation. Institutional pressure builds trust only when its purpose, limits and results can be understood. An accumulation of correspondence does not by itself demonstrate that a problem has been resolved.

The “new ICP-2” must be presented with its precise status. The official timeline consulted on October 28, 2026 still places finalization and adoption of the governance document among the steps for the end of the year. The recommended version was delivered to the executive council of the Number Resource Organization, which coordinates the regional registries, in July and published as a final draft in September. Calling it a new rule already fully applicable would anticipate the announced stages. Its importance lies in the reform’s direction and the requirements it proposes to make explicit.

Article 4 of the September 2026 draft provides for operational independence, effective control by a predominantly elected governing body, transparency and safeguards against disproportionate control by one person or a group of affiliated entities. Used as an analytical framework, these principles make scrutiny of control relationships more relevant than simply counting registered members. They also give the board’s responsibility concrete meaning. An election is insufficient when the elected body remains unable to exercise its functions effectively.

The official summary of changes provides for regular audits every five years, separate compliance reviews and a preference for rehabilitation. It also describes a temporary arrangement for service continuity in emergencies and a more detailed derecognition procedure. The draft’s rationale emphasizes procedural safeguards. The objective must be to protect the registry function and its users. The reform must not become a shortcut for turning an institution’s difficulties into a commercial opportunity to replace it.

African participation in this reform is therefore essential. Operators and members must be able to discuss intervention criteria, continuity safeguards and the return to effective regional governance. Governments can support that participation and defend the public interest without subsuming the technical community under state control. The goal is to preserve an open system capable of addressing its own failures and resisting both private and public pressure. Institutional independence requires shared oversight, not an absence of oversight.

AFRINIC’s board remains primarily accountable to its members. It was elected in September 2025, and Smart Africa welcomed the victory of seven of the eight coalition-backed candidates. It would be inaccurate to portray it as lacking electoral legitimacy. It nevertheless benefited from a rescue effort that creates a particular political obligation. Those whose support enabled governance to be reconstituted expect visible action. The board’s credibility now depends on its independence, transparency and ability to uphold the rules.

An immediate program can be stated without multiplying promises. Within fifteen days, the board should publish a chronology of entries, court orders and its own decisions, with an explanation of the rights involved. Within thirty days, it should commission an independent review of the receivership period, with a public scope and an initial report within ninety days. Members should receive regular updates on address-related proceedings, their costs and upcoming deadlines. These deadlines are proposed accountability objectives, not judicial obligations already imposed.

The same program must provide a concrete path toward the Receiver’s departure. The board must specify the powers it exercises, the decisions still subject to another authority and the lawful steps available to complete the transition. The handover must preserve records, evidence, technical services and members’ rights. An orderly exit will allow the record to be examined without preserving an exceptional arrangement as a form of government. The firm action expected by the community will be measured by those results, rather than the forcefulness of a statement.

This demand connects with the argument developed in my October 17, 2026, CircleID article on applications for new generic top-level domains, or gTLDs. I reported that Innovation Service Limited, a Seychelles company controlled by Lu Heng, had submitted ten of the sixteen applications attributed to Africa, or 62.5 percent. ICANN’s data published on October 7 placed the sixteen African applications within a worldwide total of 1,615. These are applications, not extensions already awarded. Their concentration shows how a regional statistic can conceal limited diversity among the actual participants.

The connection between the two systems is verifiable. In the .faq application, Heng Lu is identified, among other roles, as an executive, material shareholder and ultimate controller. The .larus application describes a growth strategy drawing on existing commercial relationships in IPv4 services and infrastructure. That continuity warrants scrutiny of shared interests and governance safeguards. It does not establish that revenue from a specific allocation financed a particular application, or that an application should be rejected because of its beneficiary’s nationality.

The conclusion therefore extends beyond AFRINIC. ICANN must apply its rules with equal rigor in the naming and numbering systems while respecting their different mandates. Africa must invest in its own technical, legal and economic capabilities to participate meaningfully in those systems. A company’s domicile is insufficient to measure an application’s benefits for the continent, just as holding an election is insufficient to demonstrate a registry’s autonomy. The Receiver must leave, the board must account for its actions and reform must make governance more resistant to concentrations of power. Under those conditions, African participation in registries and new gTLDs can become a lasting capacity to decide.