A bruising legal war over Africa’s internet registry has frozen the allocation of millions of digital addresses and exposed the fragility of Mauritius’s institutions. AfriNIC, the body meant to manage Africa’s internet resources, lies paralysed by injunctions, annulled ballots and a receivership that has delivered more chaos than clarity. In February the Supreme Court installed accountant Gowtamsingh Dabee as receiver. His appointment came after a first failed receivership, and it has unfolded within a playbook designed by Cloud Innovation’s founder, Lu Heng, and sustained by a judiciary that has granted his injunctions. The method is simple and devastating. File case after case until the registry cannot act without judicial leave. Drain AfriNIC’s accounts with endless litigation. Stretch bylaws until procedures collapse into disputes that guarantee fresh injunctions. More than 200,000 US dollars from AfriNIC’s coffers were already spent on a contested election in June. Since then the meter has kept running, with legal fees mounting while the registry remains frozen. Resource members ask for reports, but the receiver provides none. The registry that should be financing Africa’s networks is instead bankrolling courtroom battles in Port Louis.
In late July Dabee appointed six members to a nominations committee although the bylaws allow four, and he announced a new election calendar with nominations from August 15 and online voting scheduled for September 8 to 12. He presents this as compliance with the court’s mandate to restore governance. Yet an election launched outside the constitution is destined to be challenged. Every challenge means new fees, new delays, and deeper paralysis. This is the essence of the playbook: elections are not a path back to governance but a trigger for further capture.
To AfriNIC’s critics, this is not restoration but liquidation by stealth. The coffers are being emptied, the community ignored, and the registry pushed toward winding up under judicial supervision. For governments, investors and operators, the stakes are plain. Africa’s only internet registry risks being consumed not by technical failure but by a strategy that turns the rule of law into a tool of exhaustion.
How AfriNIC reached this point?
AfriNIC was created in 2005 to manage the allocation of internet addresses across Africa. For more than a decade it operated quietly as one of the five regional registries that underpin the global internet. The first cracks appeared in 2019 when researchers uncovered irregular allocations and millions of addresses routed outside the continent. A senior staff member was dismissed, but the breach revealed how fragile the institution had become.
The confrontation escalated when Cloud Innovation, a Seychelles based company with Chinese links, launched an aggressive legal campaign in Mauritius. More than fifty lawsuits challenged AfriNIC’s actions, freezing bank accounts, blocking board meetings and stalling reforms. The litigation did not create the weaknesses inside AfriNIC. It exposed them and then exploited them.
In 2022 the Supreme Court appointed a first receiver to restore stability. That effort collapsed without producing elections or a functioning board. By early 2025 AfriNIC was adrift, and in February the Court installed accountant Gowtamsingh Dabee as receiver with a mandate to clean the books and organize elections.
The June 2025 ballot was supposed to be a turning point. Instead it collapsed in controversy. A judge ordered its suspension, but voting went ahead with contested proxies and irregular procedures. ICANN issued a public letter warning of serious risks to AfriNIC’s global recognition, and the government of Mauritius accused the process of organized fraud.
In late July the government declared AfriNIC a “declared company” under the Companies Act, empowering the Registrar to appoint an inspector to investigate the company’s affairs. That step immediately deepened tensions. Cloud Innovation won an injunction against the inspector, pitting the judiciary against the executive and leaving AfriNIC caught in the middle of a constitutional standoff.
While this confrontation between government and judiciary unfolded, Dabee continued his receivership duties. He named a six member nominations committee and published a new election calendar that opens nominations on August 15, sets online voting for September 8 to 12, and targets September 12 for results. His plan was presented as a reset. For many members it raised a deeper concern: whether elections held outside the bylaws, with little reporting to resource members, could restore trust in an institution already weakened by conflict between the courts and the government.
The receiver and the judges’ circle
On paper Gowtamsingh Dabee arrived with impeccable credentials. He is a fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, an associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and holds an advanced diploma in international taxation. He has worked at a Big Four audit firm in Mauritius, at Andersen Worldwide in Dubai and later as chief financial officer of a construction materials company with operations in Mauritius and the Seychelles. He has implemented Sarbanes Oxley controls, led business reengineering projects and holds an MBA from the University of Surrey. His technical résumé is not in doubt.
Yet AfriNIC’s crisis has little patience for résumés. The challenge is not only technical but political, and the perception of neutrality matters as much as competence. Dabee’s spouse, Renuka Devi Dabee, is a Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Mauritius with a long career in bankruptcy and judicial administration. In larger jurisdictions such a connection might pass without notice. In a small legal community now at the center of Africa’s internet governance crisis it has become combustible context.
The optics are hard to escape. A respected judge with a background in bankruptcy sits in one wing of the courthouse while her husband, appointed as receiver, steers the fate of a continental registry from another. Every procedural decision, every delay, every communication now carries an added weight. Even absent any allegation of misconduct, the proximity itself breeds suspicion. As the Latin maxim reminds, justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done.
Inside AfriNIC, members want more than reassurances. They want clear voter rolls, published minutes, transparent accounts and a calendar that is respected. Outside AfriNIC, network operators and governments want certainty that address allocations will resume without interference or doubt. The presence of a judicial family link in the heart of this process, however incidental, complicates trust at precisely the moment when trust is the rarest commodity.