AFRINIC · RIR Watchdog
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BTW reporting and context linked to this RIR. For the proposal-by-proposal history, the people involved and their changing positions, start with Policy.
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The Injunction That Lost Its Forum: Seychelles, AFRINIC and the Limits of Cross-Border Relief
An order protecting a registry member’s position can look operationally decisive while resting on a procedural foundation that remains contestable. In *Cloud Innovation Ltd v African Network Information Centre Ltd*, the Supreme Court of Seychelles removed its own interim…
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The Noun That Held the Procedure Together
On 21 June 2022, AFRINIC’s sixth draft of its working-group guidelines replaced the CEO with the Appeal Committee as the actor whose decision would end one internal appeal. The change was only a few words long. It nevertheless exposed the real subject of the proposal: not…
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Who Held the Proposal After Consensus? AFRINIC’s Unfinished Withdrawal Rule
On 28 July 2022, AFRINIC recorded consensus, a report sent to its Board, and an author’s withdrawal against the same proposal. The record captures a procedural collision but does not settle it. What it reveals is a missing transfer point between personal authorship, collective…
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When Private Coordination Looks Upward: The NRO’s Mauritius Appeal
On 12 July 2022, the Number Resource Organization published a letter asking two Mauritian officials to attend to pressures on AFRINIC after court orders had affected the registry’s bank access and director election. The appeal came from four executives of AFRINIC’s peer…
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AFRINIC Did Not Oppose the Motion—and the Court Still Set It Aside
Silvio Cabral Almada came to court through a narrow corporate-rescue provision, and AFRINIC said it did not entity. Yet an older order already occupied the ground on which the new request would have operated. The result shows why registry prominence, corporate standing, judicial…
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The Empty Office: When AFRINIC’s Litigation Mandate Lost Its Instruction Point
On 4 November 2022, Eddy Kayihura ceased to be AFRINIC’s chief executive officer. The private company remained, its disputes remained and its lawyers remained available, but the human being whom an earlier Board resolution had authorised to instruct those lawyers no longer…
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NRO put US$250,000 behind AFRINIC’s legal defence. The public ledger stops before the case
AFRINIC’s newly published audit lets readers match a US$250,000 line of 2022 income to an NRO Executive Council resolution adopted that February. The two records establish material support. They still do not identify the paying RIRs, funded matter, lawyers, invoices, conditions…
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AFRINIC staff proposed an emergency Board exception inside a community-continuity draft
The 21 June impact assessment did not merely flag drafting defects. It recommended residual Board power whose urgent branch would survive absent consultation—forcing AFRINIC’s policy community to decide who can interrupt the independence the draft promises.
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AFRINIC’s audit says litigation may be material—and leaves the probability bridge off the page
Note 22 says an outflow was not probable, so AFRINIC recognised no provision and considered no contingent-liability disclosure necessary. The unmodified auditor’s report gives that accounting conclusion real weight, but it does not validate every legal instruction, fee or…
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AFRINIC’s audited Note 23 calls the election “successfully concluded”. That is not an authority certificate
AFRINIC’s new audit records a Board election, court orders and a Receiver still awaiting discharge. The financial statements carry real accounting assurance, but the purported Board and its supporters still need to show the executable source and present status of each governance…
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Mauritius ordered an investigation into AFRINIC. The public trail stops at the promise
General Notice No. 1045 required an inspector and report; AFRINIC and its Receiver promised full cooperation. AFRINIC later said its declared-company status remained in force, yet the bounded public record still does not identify the process stage or what governance consequence…
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AFRINIC carried US$1.66 million of member fees into 2024 as service obligations. The public trail stops at the accounting line
AFRINIC’s newly published 2023 audit shows that money already collected from members was not yet revenue at year-end: it represented services still to be transferred. The roll-forward is sound accounting. It is not the service, remedy and fee-to-function ledger that members need…
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AFRINIC’s US$100,000 stability pledge is an uncalled promise. The current control chain must show what it would save
AFRINIC’s newly published 2023 audit carries a US$100,000 promise to help an RIR in crisis. The mechanism has formal safeguards, but no pooled cash and no current public chain connecting trigger, authority, budget, use and essential-service results.
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The Injunction That Split the Office From the Seat
On 30 June 2022, a Mauritian court temporarily stopped action under AFRINIC’s sweeping litigation delegation and stopped its chief executive from acting as an ex officio director until an election reconstituted the Board. The importance of the order lies not in any final…
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Consensus at the Threshold: AFRINIC’s Draft 3 Handoff Without Ratification
On 28 July 2022, AFRINIC’s Policy Development Working Group crossed one procedural threshold and stopped before another: consensus on Update PDP Draft 3 was announced, and the chairs sent a ratification report to the Board. The distinction between those acts and a Board decision…
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Four Lamps, One Boundary: What the Peer RIR Message to AFRINIC Could—and Could Not—Authorize
Four registry executives turned AFRINIC’s difficulties into a matter of global concern while drawing a line around their own authority. Their June 2022 message is most useful not as a declaration of institutional solidarity, but as an unfinished test of what one private technical…
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AFRINIC renewed six fixed deposits in 2023. Its audit verifies the money, not who authorised the decision
AFRINIC's newly released 2023 accounts put US$6.38 million of strategic reserves on the balance sheet and say six fixed deposits were automatically renewed during the year. The audit confirms the closing value, interest-rate range and maturity window. It does not publish the…
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The Five Days Between a Right and a Vote
On 28 May 2022, AFRINIC’s published election timeline closed proxy registration and appointment for a Board and Governance Committee election due on 3 June. That five-day interval looks like a small piece of meeting administration. In practice, it was the space in which a…
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When a Meeting-Triggered Office Has No Meeting to End It
Resolution 202206.699 gave two AFRINIC board officers a term measured not by a date but by a sequence: the 2023 Annual General Members’ Meeting, followed by the first Board meeting after it. That formulation can bridge an ordinary transition. It becomes unstable when the sequence…
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The pledge that doubled under strain: AFRINIC’s joint-stability paradox
In a terse April 2022 resolution, AFRINIC changed one figure from USD 50,000 to USD 100,000. The record is striking not because it proves that money moved—it does not—but because a registry facing documented legal and banking strain remained on the contributor’s side of a joint…