Hi Sander's post gives me a good opportunity to respond to some of the points he makes. There are three facts I would like to comment on. 1. NRO intervention in Mauritius governance and rule of law I'll start by thanking Sander for pointing out the reality. The letter has come as a shock to many. A few board members and many people in the communities I have been talking to agree that the separation of power and sovereignty of the nation must be respected. The letter's signatories were either very, very poorly advised (I assume by AFRINIC) or they really do think that Africa should be treated differently to other parts of the world. Either way, they would do well to remember that the last time a few private western companies could tell a nation in AFRICA what to do was 500 years ago. I hope NRO understands this fact. 2. AFRINIC's bank account being frozen AFRINIC terminated Cloud Innovation's membership last year, causing damage much greater than its company value. Hence, an ex-party attachment order is a natural reaction in most common law jurisdictional processes. Cloud Innovation is the third largest member of AFRINIC. To give a sense of their decision, compared to the RIPE equivalent this would be RIPE NCC terminating Deutsche Telekom without proper cause, which may lead to the entire Germany losing its connection. In retaliation, Deutsche Telekom attaches all RIPE NCC assets for it. When you run a business, if you cause a third party a damage which is greater than your company value in multiple size, an attachment to your entire asset is simply something you should expect in most jurisdictions in the world. Mauritius is no exception. 3. Regarding AFRINIC's current situation: As it is currently sub-judice, I am not able to comment much. However, I need to point out that AFRINIC is being sued by at least 7 different parties, and my company is just one of them. This alone paints a picture of the unhappiness of an entire community towards the leadership in AFRINIC. So this notion and attempt to make me a super villain and the primary source of the problem is entirely naive and doesn't respect the facts at all. Members voted down AFRINIC financials, voted down its appointment of auditors, irregularities in the board's attempt to control the elections and its outcome. All of those are not because of me, but rather the shortcomings of the board itself. Finally, to RIPE communities: I know people hold mixed opinions towards me within the community. With respect, opinions don't matter - the facts do. My intent was never to win a popularity contest but to expose the wrong doing and failures in AFRINIC. Standing up against a monopolistic bully is always going to bring attacks against one's character but it is a sacrifice I am prepared to make to expose what has been going wrong in AFRINIC. Once the dust has settled, I will tell the story of AFRINIC from start to end, and my side of the story as objectively as possible. Only then when everyone has all the facts and information will you be able to judge unbiased. But for now, I believe it is in the best interests of RIPE NCC and all other bodies to stay aside and let the respectful judges in Mauritius to do their jobs without interference. Ad hominem attacks against my morals, ethics and personality, instead of making good arguments, clearly violates CoC, and I leave RIPE NCC to comment on it. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to respond. Lu On Mon, Jul 18, 2022 at 1:31 PM Sander Steffann <sander@steffann.nl> wrote:

Hi everybody,

My previous version of this email got rejected by RIPE NCC moderation, so let me try again…

I have understood that people have interpreted this bit in a way that I didn’t mean:

...

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t like Lu Heng and the way he does business, but not all his lawsuits are without merit

Let me put that in very clear words: I personally extremely strongly oppose what Lu Heng is doing, his apparent morals and ethics, the way he does business etc. The way he is suing AFRINIC, blocking their bank accounts and stuff like that, just for personal/business benefit, is very much not ok.

But… He is also not stupid. He abuses things that are actually wrong in AFRINIC to get what he wants. Just because he’s doing things that I think are very bad doesn’t mean that he is always wrong. Scary: definitely! Bad: definitely! But: the way to solve this is by getting things in order inside AFRINIC and by going through the proper legal channels in Mauritius. This is not something that is up to us, the RIRs or the NRO to fix. This is something for the African legal system and the African community to solve. We do not control their fate.

My apologies if anyone thought that I support Lu Heng in this. I very strongly do not. But I do oppose to the way the NRO is getting involved.

Cheers, Sander

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