IP addresses: Legal dispute over Afrinic endangers self-government​

In the legal dispute between the IP address allocation agency Afrinic and the company Cloud Innovation, which has been escalating for a year and a half, the African address administrators have suffered a defeat. The Supreme Court of Mauritius ruled on Wednesday that Afrinic may not withdraw numerous IPv4 addresses from the company of the Chinese address dealer Lu Heng before a decision in the main proceedings. Afrinic is based in Mauritius.

Lu Heng, through his Hong Kong-based company Larus and Seychelles-registered Cloud Innovation, offers coveted IPv4 address rentals around the world. Cloud Innovation, which pays around $10,000 annually to Afrinic for membership, holds around six to seven million IPv4 addresses. Larus leases an IPv4 number for around $0.37 per month.

Afrinic reclaims addresses

Afrinic has been trying to take these address blocks back from Cloud Innovation since March 2021 and argues that the addresses are being used in violation of the contract. The address lender, on the other hand, has gone to court several times. Of the more than forty lawsuits and requests for injunctions listed by Africa’s IP address administration on its website, more than half concern the lawsuit with Lu Heng, Cloud Innovation and Larus.

IPv4 addresses are a rare commodity worldwide. Even with Afrinic, which had IPv4 longer than the other four regional IP address administrations (RIRs), the shorter addresses are now practically used up.

The ongoing litigation is about whether Lu Heng uses the addresses obtained from Afrinic differently than originally stated and whether he should have announced the change of use according to (Section 4 of the contract). According to Lu Heng, there is no restriction on the use of Afrinic addresses on networks in Africa alone. In fact, members of the European RIPE can also use their “European” IP addresses outside of the region. According to experts, rules for reporting “changes in use” are applied rather laxly.

In its decision on Wednesday, the Supreme Court in Mauritius also contradicted Afrinic’s objection that Cloud Innovation was abusing the courts with repeated lawsuits on the same matter. At the end of 2021, Afrinic withdrew a declaration made in court that he would initially refrain from excluding cloud innovation. The judge at the Supreme Court considers it appropriate that Cloud Innovation then went back to court. The company had to fear that Afrinic would immediately withdraw all addresses. How the main thing ends remains open after this decision.

RIRs threaten withdrawal from Mauritius

Because the legal battle is threatening the functioning of African address management – ​​a year ago, Lu Heng had Afrinic’s accounts temporarily blocked – the other four RIRs are now helping their African sister. In a letter to the Mauritian government, the Number Resource Organization (NRO), the umbrella organization of the five RIRs, warns that the numerous procedures would prevent Afrinic from fulfilling his important task.

The blocking of accounts was lifted after around three months, but the next injunction paralyzed the organization, NRO continues. The forthcoming elections for the Afrinic board in the spring made this impossible and the address allocation office was practically insane. The NGO leaders support Afrinic’s request to be given the status of an “international organization”.

At the same time, the RIR bosses are openly threatening to withdraw the address allocation: “It would be a shame for the community in Africa if the situation described turned out to be a mistake in choosing Mauritius as the seat for Afrinic.” This type of interference did not go down well with Afrinic members, but also in the other regions.

There are no resolutions to install Afrinic as an international organization, Liquid Labs CTO Andrew Alston, who until recently was a board member at Afrinic, told voonze online. On the other hand, it is problematic if the NGO tells the government and the Mauritius Public Prosecutor’s Office that they expect “more appropriate results” from the change in status. This kind of influence must be firmly rejected.

Colonial tones?

Sander Steffann, long-standing chairman of the address policy working group at RIPE, criticized what he saw as neo-colonialist tones. Steffann, himself by no means a friend of Lu Heng, as he emphasizes, is above all concerned that the RIPE could also get caught up in the Afrinic maelstrom and ultimately damage the model of self-government as a whole.

Meanwhile, the Number Resource Society (NRS) is launching targeted attacks against Afrinic. The newly founded NRS is apparently directly related to Lu Heng’s Larus Foundation, as an e-mail to the contact address ends up directly at “info@larus.foundation”. In some videos, the Afrinic accuses the NRS of corruption, extortion and endangering the Internet as a whole.

At the same time, the NRS is also shooting at the address management system as a whole. The oversight of the RIRs has not kept pace with the growth of the network. According to NRS, it does not want a radical system change, but it also does not want to leave address self-administration to an exclusive club of administrators.

Allegations against Afrinic CEO

However, the NRS is not the only party undermining confidence in self-government. Afrinics CEO Eddy Kayihura himself faces allegations about his conduct. Among other things, the members and committees of Afrinic are said to have been ignored when filling the board. A Mauritian court intervened at the end of June and provisionally suspended the CEO.

Kayihuara is said to have approached government officials in the African Telecommunication Union to propose candidates for the incapacitated Afrinic board, according to a letter published by NRS. Bringing governments into the house is a sin for an organization that by its statutes is to be governed by its members. Afrinic is thus playing into the hands of the states that have long insisted on “more state instead of self-government” in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

(vbr)