[Community-Discuss] Supreme Court Order in Relation to Cloud Innovation v AFRINIC

[Kevin Kamonye]

Worrying times indeed.

Thank you for preparing and sharing the detailed documentation.

AFRINIC??

Regards,

Kevin

ᐧ
ᐧ

On Wed, 14 Jul 2021 at 12:09, Paschal Ochang <pascosoft at gmail.com> wrote:


> Dissolution of Appeal Committees while appeals are still on board without

> justification, non transparent reclamation of resources from members

> without proper justification using drastic measures, installation of new

> cochairs without conforming to laid down procedures. The list goes on and

> on. Worrying times.

>

> On Wednesday, July 14, 2021, tech <tech at cloudinnovation.org> wrote:

>

>> This letter is a follow-up to the unfortunate incident arising from the

>> actions taken by AFRINIC (African Network Information Centre), including

>> terminating our (Cloud Innovation Ltd) membership and reclaiming our number

>> resources which we consider to have been totally unnecessary, unreasonable,

>> and unjust. The action has not caused only serious damage to Cloud

>> Innovation and hundreds of its clients' businesses, but also to hundreds of

>> millions of end-users who were potentially endangered at the same time.

>>

>>

>>

>> We are pleased to announce that  urgent interim relief has been granted

>> to Cloud Innovation by the Honourable Judge in Chambers of  the Supreme

>> Court of Mauritius( herewith attached) to prevent AFRINIC from reclaiming

>> our number resources in such illegal manner.  As a result of which,  Cloud

>> Innovation will now be in a position to resume business as normal until the

>> issues are resolved before the competent courts..

>>

>>

>>

>> For the sake of clarity and transparency, we would share with you as set

>> out below the background which led to the current state of affairs:

>>

>>

>>

>> -    AFRINIC  issued a letter to Cloud Innovation on June 23, 2020,

>> accusing Cloud Innovation of policy violations. AFRINIC threatened to take

>> actions and demanded an immediate response within 14 days. Despite the

>> short notice, Cloud Innovation investigated AFRINIC's accusations

>> carefully. Cloud Innovation did not find any policy violations of its own

>> but only AFRINIC's own misinterpretation of its policy document and errors

>> in understanding the nature of BGP. Cloud Innovation duly issued a response

>> on 13 July 2020, within the deadline set by AFRINIC to explain the

>> misunderstanding of AFRINIC’s own documents and erroneous assertions

>> regarding routing.

>>

>>

>>

>> -     After eight months, AFRINIC issued a letter on 10 March 2021 (

>> being the first day Mauritius went into a second national lockdown due to

>> COVID-19)  to Cloud Innovation, raising similar alleged breaches as

>> those alleged in June 2020 but with  the following warning note::

>>

>>

>>

>> *To address the aforementioned issues, Cloud Innovation Ltd is hereby

>> most formally required to promptly and accurately submit its “change

>> request” in compliance with Clauses 4(a) and 2(d) of the RSA, as well as

>> ensure full compliance with AFRINIC. The “change request” must*

>>

>> *include:*

>>

>> *I. Detailed utilisation information for all the aforementioned IPv4

>> prefixes including the services for which the resources are being used and

>> country of service origin.*

>>

>> *II. Planned utilisation of your remaining IPv4 space for the next 8

>> months*

>>

>> *III.Your “change request”, if any, should reach AFRINIC by 12-04-2021,

>> by the close of business.*

>>

>> *AFRINIC shall consider the merits of your request, if any, and will in

>> its sole discretion determine whether to terminate the RSA as well as to

>> proceed with the reclaiming of the IPv4 Number Resources allocated to Cloud

>> Innovation Ltd. You are further informed that AFRINIC shall not be held

>> liable for any loss or damage of whatever nature arising out of the present

>> notice or any action that AFRINIC may take in accordance thereof. Your

>> “change request”, if any, should reach AFRINIC by 12-04-2021, by the close

>> of business.AFRINIC shall consider the merits of your request, if any, and

>> will in its sole discretion determine whether to terminate the RSA as well

>> as to proceed with the reclaiming of the IPv4 Number Resources allocated to

>> Cloud Innovation Ltd. You are further informed that AFRINIC shall not be

>> held liable for any loss or damage of whatever nature arising out of the

>> present notice or any action that AFRINIC may take in accordance *

>> thereof.

>>

>>

>>

>>          The false accusations made by AFRINIC and our response/views are

>> attached in a separate document (named:Chronology) for the benefit of all

>> the community..

>>

>>

>>

>> -       As the 3rd largest member of AFRINIC, Cloud Innovation serves

>> hundreds of millions of end-users through hundreds of telecoms and ISPs

>> around the world. The services, such as hosting websites, counts        for

>> over 1.5 million websites hosted by Cloud Innovation's IP alone. Thus,

>> there is no way, especially with the size of Cloud Innovation, to fully and

>> wholly satisfy AFRINIC's request within the timeframe it provided. With the

>> real threat of membership termination and hundreds of millions of users'

>> connectivity on the line, Cloud Innovation was left with no option but to

>> seek the mercy of the court in Mauritius during a period of lockdown with

>> limited resources. An interim order of injunction was therefore issued by

>> the Mauritius court on April 7,2021 to protect the interests of end-users

>> and to forbid AFRINIC from acting irrationally.

>>

>>

>>

>>

>>

>> -       By virtue of a judgment issued on the evening of  7 July 2021,

>> the said injunction was lifted on the basis of a mere legal technicality

>> basis, which was partially caused by the inability to provide a power of

>> attorney to our lawyers in Mauritius during the total lockdown of

>> Mauritius, a direct result of AFRINIC releasing such a letter to us on the

>>   first day  of the Mauritius lockdown.

>>

>>

>>

>> -       In order to protect our interests and the hundreds of millions

>> of users of number resources registered to us, we took immediate action by

>> filing an appeal against the judgment on the very next day..

>>

>>

>>

>> -       In order to safeguard its interests, Cloud Innovation had to

>> again seek urgent relief before the Supreme Court of Mauritius.   By

>> virtue of an interim order of injunction issued on 13 July 2021, AFRINIC

>> has been restrained and prohibited from terminating our membership and

>> reclaiming our number resources.   The said proceedings are now pending

>> before the Supreme Court of Mauritius.

>>

>>

>>

>> -       We welcome the urgent intervention of the Supreme Court of

>> Mauritius for interim relief in order to protect our rights as a member. .

>> We would like to inform those concerned that the operations of our number

>> resources will revert to normal at the earliest as AFRINIC is under an

>> obligation to comply with the Judge’s Order as attached.

>>

>>

>>

>> -       We wish to emphasise that as an AFRINIC member in good standing,

>> we consistently abide by their policy and strive to contribute to the

>> community to the best of our ability. We have never intended to take any

>> action against AFRINIC but are obligated to take the appropriate measures

>> to protect ourselves, the hundreds of our customers, and hundreds of

>> millions of end-users.

>>

>>

>>

>> -       We reserve full and absolute legal rights and remedies in

>> respect to AFRINIC's actions against us.

>>

>>

>>

>> We would also like to clarify that as the NRO has stated in their letter,

>> "All RIRs, on occasion, face allegations of errors in implementation of

>> policy or agreements, and such disputes, being routine in nature are best

>> handled by the individual RIR and/or its community ", such routine

>> disagreement (mostly in all the other RIRs, or AFRINIC before this

>> management) is sorted by merely communicating between the tech team and the

>> registration services department of the respective RIR. It has never come

>> to such drastic actions before, like the RIR threatening and endangering

>> the very stability of the Internet.

>>

>>

>>

>> We trust the above has shed some light on the matter for all those

>> concerned. We are grateful for the continued belief and support we have

>> received from all of you.

>>

>>

>>

>

> --

> Kind regards,

>

> Paschal.

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