[Community-Discuss] Issue of AfriNIC illegality

[Alan Barrett]

> On 14 Nov 2016, at 22:19, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> 
>>> The advice from counsel is that it most likely would not. Further, it seems that the companies act requires proxies.
>> 
>> … And we explained that in the context of Company act, the limit of 5 proxies is legal. as Company act only recognise the nine(9) board members as AFRINIC members(Registered Members).
> 
> We being who, exactly? Because IIRC, AfriNIC legal counsel disagreed.

I think it’s very widely agreed that the “members” or “shareholders” in the Companies Act correspond to AFRINIC’s “Registered Members”, and that AFRINIC’s “Resource Members” and “Associate Members” have no counterpart in the Companies Act.  This implies that the Resource Members and Associate Members have the rights granted by the Bylaws, but not rights that the Act grants to members to shareholders.

> As near as I can tell, the relevant sections are Part V, Subpart IV, sections 128 through 130 which read:

I think you might be looking at a different version of the Act.  The one I have was downloaded from <http://companies.govmu.org/English/Legislation/Pages/Companies-Act-2001.aspx> and claims to be THE COMPANIES ACT 2001 — ACT 5 of 2001, but I gather from the file name that it’s actually a version as amended in 2016.

In the version that I have, the relevant part is the FIFTH SCHEDULE, section 6.

Alan Barrett