Summary

  • AFRINIC may suspend, revoke or decline to renew a number resource only by relying on conditions written into its Registration Services Agreement: unpaid fees, breach of the agreement or related policies, false or misleading information, or non-compliance with its bylaws and policies.
  • The 2020 constitution does not create that power separately. Article 7.3 routes "contractual rights to number resources" back to the Registration Services Agreement, so a resource member's entitlement is whatever the signed contract says it is.
  • Courts and insolvency law can change who is permitted to run the registry. Mauritius' Companies Act allows a receiver to be appointed, and the Supreme Court of Mauritius has both restrained a revocation and later confirmed one on the merits. Neither act transfers the underlying entitlement.
  • The next observable decision points are procedural: the pending discharge of the receiver, the contested winding-up petition, AFRINIC's status as a declared company, and the filings that still seek to invalidate the board elected in September 2025.

The power sits in section 11 of the Registration Services Agreement

AFRINIC's Registration Services Agreement carries a section headed "Suspension/Revocation/Non-renewal" — section 11 — and that heading is the whole architecture in miniature. The conditions it attaches to losing address space are contractual and enumerable: failure to pay applicable fees, breach of the agreement or related policies, provision of false or misleading information, and non-compliance with AFRINIC's bylaws or policies. The same section reaches further than a member's own conduct: section 11.4 extends suspension, revocation or non-renewal to a situation in which AFRINIC itself is declared an insolvent company or becomes subject to similar proceedings. The register of these terms, including the insolvency trigger, is reported in the public record of the AFRINIC litigation the Registration Services Agreement terms as recorded in the litigation file.

The practical consequence is procedural rather than dramatic. When AFRINIC asserts a right to withdraw resources, it is asserting a contract term, and the holder's answer is a contract answer: that the condition was not met, that the information relied on was not false, or that the policy invoked does not exist in the form claimed. That is a different dispute from one about who sits on the board, and it survives changes in who does.

The constitution defers, it does not grant

The second instrument is often read as if it were the first. AFRINIC's 2020 constitution, at Article 7.3, governs "Contractual rights to number resources" by reference to the Registration Services Agreement the 2020 constitution's treatment of contractual rights to number resources. That is a delegation, not a grant. The membership's constitution tells the reader where to look; it does not itself supply the conditions on which a member keeps address space.

This matters for remedies because it determines what a successful challenge must establish. A member who wins a vote, or who persuades a court that a meeting was improperly convened, has changed the composition of a governing body. A member who wants to keep resources has to win on the contract, or on the law that governs how the contract may be enforced while other proceedings are running.

Insolvency law suspends the runner, not the entitlement

Mauritius supplies the third layer. The Companies Act 2001, section 230, provides for a court to treat a company as insolvent and appoint a receiver to manage its affairs. AFRINIC was placed under receivership by the Supreme Court of Mauritius on 15 July 2021, following a petition by Emtel Ltd as a judgment creditor, with George H. Legallant appointed receiver the statutory receivership route and its application to AFRINIC.

A receiver changes who may act for the company. It does not rewrite section 11, and it does not convert a contract claim into a constitutional one. That distinction is why the same dispute can be litigated for years on parallel tracks without either track disposing of the other.

What the Supreme Court gave, and what it did not

The clearest illustration is the Cloud Innovation sequence, because it contains both an interim measure and a merits decision, and they do different work. On 15 April 2021, Cloud Innovation Ltd obtained an interim injunction from the Supreme Court of Mauritius restraining AFRINIC from withdrawing or revoking the IP addresses assigned to it and from changing the related whois records. On 31 March 2022 the same court delivered judgment in the substantive dispute: it confirmed the validity of the transfers, made the injunction permanent, ordered AFRINIC to restore Cloud Innovation's MyAFRINIC access, and awarded damages the interim injunction and the subsequent merits judgment.

The interim order stopped an act. The merits judgment decided a question. For any resource holder weighing its position, the second is the durable remedy and the first is not, which is why the sequence is worth reading closely rather than as a single narrative of wins and losses.

Coordination authority enters as a party, not as a rights-holder

ICANN's role has been argued, not assumed. On 14 October 2021, ICANN filed an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court of Mauritius arguing that winding up AFRINIC would pose a significant risk to the stability of the global internet numbering system. On 20 October 2021, the court suspended the winding-up petition against AFRINIC for six months and lifted the powers of the provisional liquidator ICANN's amicus brief and the court's suspension of the winding-up petition.

That framing is instructive. ICANN's standing rested on systemic consequence — what happens to a shared numbering system if a regional registry is dissolved — rather than on any property claim to the addresses. The distinction between coordination authority and contractual authority is exactly the gap into which arguments about AFRINIC's future have repeatedly fallen.

The 2025–2026 file: pending, contested, and not yet decided

The current phase must be described in the language of pending matters. The court-appointed receiver's application for discharge is before the court, with Cloud Innovation objecting and seeking the appointment of a further receiver. Cloud Innovation filed a winding-up petition against AFRINIC in July 2025, which AFRINIC contests. The Prime Minister of Mauritius designated AFRINIC a "Declared Company" in July 2025, a status reported as still in force in March 2026. On 14 May 2026, the Supreme Court allowed ICANN to intervene in the winding-up petition, where ICANN argues that internet number resources allocated by AFRINIC are not assets available for distribution in a liquidation the 2025–2026 procedural position and ICANN's intervention.

Governance is contested on the same timeline. A board election held in September 2025 returned seven of eight candidates endorsed by a coalition, and filings seeking to invalidate the appointment of those directors remained before the Supreme Court. The elected board's status is therefore contested rather than settled. An election result is evidence about membership preferences; it is not a determination about the contract.

What a durable remedy looks like

Read end to end, the instruments produce a hierarchy that does not collapse into a single authority. The Registration Services Agreement supplies the power over resources. The constitution routes resource entitlements to that agreement. The Companies Act lets a court take over the running of the company without rewriting its contracts. Courts can restrain a particular exercise of the contract power, and they can confirm one on the merits.

For a resource holder, the practical implication is a checklist rather than a slogan. Identify the contract condition actually invoked. Test it against the agreement's text and any incorporated policy. Expect interim relief to be temporary by design. Treat receivership orders, elections and interventions as changes in who may act, not as changes in what is owed.

The open questions are genuinely open and worth stating plainly. No finding is available on the receiver's discharge. No outcome is recorded for the winding-up petition. No final ruling is recorded on the challenge to the September 2025 board. Whether a declared-company designation ultimately bars a winding up, and whether allocated numbering resources can ever be treated as distributable assets, remain contested propositions advanced by ICANN rather than settled holdings. None of those answers is required to know where the power over African IP addresses is currently written: in section 11 of an agreement that resource holders sign, which is also the only place a durable answer can be found. The target is tracked in the BTW directory at the AFRINIC directory entry.