Eight Year Legal Battle Recap
ICANN Wins by Technical Knockout,
DCA Blocked From Being Heard On its Merit

Battle Continues, as Fraud Claims Can't be Buried!
US Appellate Court of California Affirms the Trial Courts application on Judicial Estoppel 
in favor of ICANN on the .Africa Domain name
.....Los Angeles, California, November 26, 2021: DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA), the Mauritius/Kenya-based charitable Trust and principal applicant for the .Africa Internet Domain Extension has lost its Appeal case in Los Angeles Court in its ongoing legal battle against United States-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The DCA vs. ICANN case involved many twists and turns, spanning nearly a decade of DCA’s efforts to hold ICANN accountable for the harm it caused to DCA over the delegation rights of the .Africa new gTLD Registry. 

.....On September 20, 2021, the Appeal Court agreed with the earlier ruling of the Trial Court decision on October 3rd, 2019 that DCAs case against ICANN should be Judicially Estopped (JE) from bringing any claims against ICANN. The JE is estoppel that precludes a party from taking a position in a case that is contrary to a position it has taken in earlier legal proceedings. Although, in the United States, it is only a part of common law and therefore not sharply defined, is agreed that it can only be cited if the party in question successfully maintained its position in the earlier proceedings and benefited from it. DCA Trust did not in either case. 

.....It is well known that the Independent Review Process (“IRP”) panel did not rule on many of DCA’s complaints/claims, but on a single issue – the ill advice from ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee to stop DCA’s application from further processing. In addition, it is well settled that Judicial Estoppel (JE) is “an extraordinary and equitable remedy” that “must be applied with caution and limited to egregious circumstances’” because it can impinge on the truth-seeking function of the court and produce harsh consequences.”
DCA’s case has NEVER BEEN HEARD on its Merits on any
judicial platform
.....This is only the second time DCA has NOT prevailed against ICANN wrote The Register UK, on 13 Feb 2017, pertaining to the history of DCA's many victories since its application submission. The precedent-setting win on its first would affect the internet landscape by benefiting the global Internet community at large. The IRP process was declared "Binding", among other significant procedural precedences.

.....Therefore, this last win in "overturning the waiver" would have had an even greater impact and significance on how ICANN would treat its applicants and its internet community.

.....In this instance, ICANN won its argument that statements made by DCA’s IRP Lawyer was inconsistent with DCA’s Lawsuit and DCA had already benefited from the IRP and therefore is not entitled to a second claim. Amongst others, ICANN heavily quoted the IRP Lawyer statements below that barred DCA’s case from being heard on its merit at a jury trial:

.....“These proceedings will be the first and last opportunity that DCA Trust will have to have its rights determined by an independent body." and “DCA and other gTLD applicants, the IRP is their only recourse; no other remedy is available” -- Arif Ali, IRP Lawyer

.....In its lawsuit, DCA was not intending to re-litigate the issues that has already been decided by the IRP Panel, rather just the causes of action that constitute the “triable issues” of material fact by the court, and which were never brought to the IRP Panel, as well as the post-IRP actions of ICANN staff.  
.....Given that DCA’s appeal case was represented by the same lawyer who litigated the IRP, reputedly “ICANN Czar” by the Industry for his successful IRP wins against ICANN, it is most unfortunate, and surprising that DCA would lose this appeal case.
Judicial Estoppel should never be applied while there are
triable issues outstanding
.....Applying judicial estoppel in the current circumstances by the Judges has allowed fraud to go unpunished. DCA Trust should not have been judicially estopped because there are "triable issues" in the lawsuit relating to alleged fraud which the trial court had earlier ruled were that DCA’s remaining claims are outside the scope of the Covenant, when denying ICANN’s Motion for Summary Judgement (MSJ) in part and ruled to proceed directly to a jury trial. .Unless the case proceeds to a jury trial on its merit, how would the court really know whether it has made a just decision?  

.....Thus, ICANN made sure that the merits of the DCA case are never heard by a jury by proving a non-existent issue of judicial estoppel. Judicial Estoppel is an (equitable) doctrine in the Laws of Equity, there is preponderant evidence which suggests that ICANN: a) Acted unconscionably, b) Acted in bad faith -Administered a waiver that was unlawful and unenforceable under Californian law – or the waiver did not include the necessary riders/provisos that it would/would not apply if fraud was involved.
DCA or any applicant could or should not have gone to a 2nd
INDEPENDENT REVIEW PROCESS (IRP) for many reasons
.....During the oral argument, the appeal Judge kept heckling DCA’s lawyers, as to why DCA did not go to a second IRP? Contrary to ICANN’s argument and the lack of adequate and conclusive clarification DCA's lawyers made in their reply, DCA could not have gone to a 2nd IRP for several reasons.

  1. DCA’s case was the first IRP in the new gTLD space therefore, a second IRP was unheard of. ICANN also did not direct DCA toward that.
  2. There is no mention or mandate in the rule book that applicants should revert to a 2nd IRP, despite some applicants having exercised it and ICANN has accepted it. 
  3. Significantly, the IRP is a procedure that seeks relief for “Board Actions” and not “Staff Actions”, which the latter was the case in DCA’s lawsuit. 
  4. An IRP also does not have provisions to provide relief for alleged fraud which was the case for DCA.

.....Besides, as the industry knows, the IRP is an ICANN-created process and has significant limitations.  These limitations may not be unique to DCA’s case, but Lawyers agreeing to redact the irregularities on the merits of the case in a final declaration written by a panel of Judges (amongst others, that the ICANN CEO himself ghost-wrote the endorsement letter for ZACR/AUC), and burying their so-called “Clients in Pyrrhic victories, and thereafter, throw the applicant back in the lion’s den for another review or contention, should be considered a major transgression. This of course, as the Lawyers come out on top as “winning” vs "doing the right thing”. 

.....Besides, the IRP review process takes 18 months of the applicant's time and money, which should not even be an acceptable timeline for a simple arbitration that blocks a whole discovery on its merit and rules on a single irregularity the lawyers agree upon. In our instance, it was only through DCA’s persistence that the full unredacted report of the discovery work done on the merits of DCA's case was even exposed to shade light on ICANN’s misconduct on DCA. So where is the justice in this long process?

......On the contentious matter of Endorsement:.By the time of the court trial, DCA has also established that the rule book does not in any way suggest that applicants renew the endorsement they received initially. Rather, the rule book asserts to get an early endorsement by applicants. Moreover, that endorsement cannot willfully be withdrawn, unless the applicant violated the registry operations agreement it signed with the endorser. Therefore, whatever ICANN was challenging DCA in this regard was subject to a judicial evaluation, which did not happen. Particularly, given the IRP panel never ruled on this matter.

.....As the first new gTLD applicant to go to an IRP, DCA is the one that highlighted the below passage to our IRP Lawyers to present it to the panel, but no proper redress came out of it. .....
.....“Any person materially affected by a decision or action by the Board that he or she asserts is inconsistent with the Articles of Incorporation or Bylaws may submit a request for an independent review of that decision or action. In order to be materially affected, the person must suffer injury or harm that is directly and causally connected to the board’s alleged violation of the Bylaws or the Articles of Incorporation, and not as a result of third parties acting in line with the Board’s action.”
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.....Therefore, with the same recycled IRP procedures, recycled IRP Judges, and recycled Lawyers, a decade later, we all saw the victors and the victims of the IRP process.
Judges misunderstanding of the ICANN & AUC process
Got no proper clarifications, despite repeatedly asking for it
"This is a big and important case, we want to get it right" - Judge
.....The Appeal Court’s Judges; apparent misunderstanding of the ICANN and the AUC processes was evident by how they simply composed a narrative in their ruling consistent with ICANN’s point of view. It was visibly embarrassing when one reads the tentative let alone the final report.

.....DCA insisted our lawyers correct the factual errors in their tentative opinion, which included among many, making assertions that the .africa gTLD was not delegated, and in other cases, erroneously asserting a point that ZACR won the AUC RFP because it was a “lone applicant”. As we all know the fact, the AUC had a public press release that ZACR won the RFP after an international call for a bid and was found to be the best qualified. It is therefore puzzling how the Appeals court reached its conclusion to the contrary when even ICANN’s briefs never claimed that. In addition, DCA has to also correct the court's misappropriation that DCA is holding the ".africa" litigations unnecessarily in a long contention with ICANN, by demonstrating years of contention on gTLDs is not uncommon, similar to the ".amazon gTLD", which took nearly 8 years to resolve with ICANN. For those who watched, .Amazon was objected to by GAC after DCA and their arguments on GAC were nearly a carbon copy of DCA's.

.....Yet another outlandish comment made by the court was claiming that ZACR “outmaneuvered” DCA on their endorsement, without understanding that ZACR was really a “proxy applicant” for AUC. This was clear from DCA’s briefs submitted to the Appeal court.  In fact, ZACR “outmaneuvered” the AUC and the African community that supported them, by first, campaigning and applying at ICANN "on behalf of the community", second opposing to DCA application with the independent objector (IO) the same, while in both instances knowing that .Africa is not a "community " gTLD, and finally by submitting fraudulent endorsement that AUC solicited from African governments as they requested to "reserve".Africa name" for themselves, which ICANN evaluators did not accept. Finally, ZACR also knowingly signed a direct contract in contravention of ICANN’s registry agreement to give .africa rights to AUC, all to the make-believe of the African governments and the African community. In reality, only ZACR controlled the rights to .africa as that contract was later deemed illegitimate. Despite all these irregularities, ICANN accepted ZACR's application as legitimate, in fact, making all the corrections for them.

.....Thus, the Appeals court's expecting that ZACR's actions should have been matched by DCA, in order to win .africa is like asking a camel to pass through an eye of a needle. The gatekeepers were the poachers in ZACR's case. The unscrupulous joint actions of ZACR/AUC/ICANN were never subject to any "judicial examination", the reason DCA went to court in the first place. Instead, the court turns a blind eye to it and makes unsubstantiated remarks to influence public opinion in support of the decisions ICANN made. Here is where one says, Judges are born and not made.

Who is fooling who?

...... Hence, many pages of the appeal court's report were dedicated to the history of the .africa process, again, where the merits have not been subject to any proper “judicial examination". This is evident by the amount of space the court allocated to what can be construed as a face-saving exercise for ICANN, naming the African community members in detail who help facilitate the “AUC sponsored agenda” to assist ICANN during its transition from the oversight of the United State government and yet point to the IRP panel ruling that did not confirm the alleged conflict of interest filed by DCA over these people. Of course, who is fooling who? The IRP panel’ did not address any of these claims the court regurgitates about, as their declaration clearly stated, “their ruling was strictly limited to the GAC advise and nothing else”. ....
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.....Moreover, despite several key and relevant questions posed by the lady Judge on the various actions of the trial court, the appeals court in its final ruling did not also give much deference to DCA winning the Motion for Summary Judgment (MSJ) at the Los Angeles Superior Court. In May 2017, ICANN requested to dismiss all the causes of action contained in the DCA lawsuit. The Court had found that the causes of action that were based on allegations of fraud or willful injury were not barred by the waiver not to sue, and therefore constitute 'triable issues' and thus should proceed to a trial; whilst the MSJ was granted for the causes of action that were unrelated to fraud or willful injury. 

.... The judge had agreed that since DCA Trust had alleged fraud in its lawsuit, then California Civil Code 1668 was applicable.
.....Going back to DCA's IRP outcome, the trial judge had also noted in his ruling that:
..“committing fraud and causing wilful injury certainly is not consistent with ICANN’s Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws” - Judge Howard Halm
.
which suggests that ICANN possibly defrauded DCA. The judge noted in his tentative ruling that:

.....“Based on judicial estoppels, the Court finds that DCA is precluded from litigating claims already litigated before the IRP Panel on which the IRP Panel; made findings. […] This finding does not preclude DCA from introducing evidence that arose before the Final Declaration so long as the evidence is foundational for a post-IRP claim of fraud or willful misconduct, which will be the primary issues addressed during the jury trial currently set for August 22, 2018.” - Judge Howard Halm
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.....Unfortunately, the sudden retirement of Judge Halm who made all those rulings caused a mistrial, and the new Judge’s ruling on the JE, in turn, favored ICANN, which meant stopping DCA from going to a jury trial on the merits, as he applied Judicial Estoppel on our case. This prompted DCA to file for an Appeal at the California Court of Appeals.
....Therefore, the Appeals court final ruling which did not much change from their tentative opinion, except the "factual" corrections made by DCA, reads like a narrative in support of a political construct justifying ICANN’s actions in the history of .africa and falls short to discuss intelligently any matters of law DCA had pointed out relating to the trial court’s decision. Unfortunately, the arguments presented by DCA's Lawyers did not also convince them to change their opinion.
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Dear Honorables! Applying judicial estoppel in the current circumstances by you has allowed fraud to go unpunished. Unless the case proceeds to a jury trial on its merit, how would the court really know whether it has made a just decision? - DCA Trust

.....On January 2016, after learning that ICANN would reject its application, DCA filed suit against ICANN. ICANN then removed the case to the Central District of California. While this case was pending before the district court, DCA moved for and won a temporary restraining order and subsequently a preliminary injunction, enjoining ICANN from delegating the rights to .Africa until the case was resolved. ZACR filed a motion to reconsider the preliminary injunction order which ICANN joined. The motion for reconsideration was denied. On October 19, 2016, the district court remanded the case to state court due to lack of jurisdiction. In the DCA v. ICANN lawsuit, DCA Trust (as ‘plaintiff’) had sued ICANN (as ‘defendant’) – initially at the California District of the US Federal High Court in February 2016, citing fraud and other causes of actions (stated in the legal complaint) over ICANN’s handling of the .Africa new generic Top-Level Domain name (new gTLD). 

.....On July 9, 2015, DCA Trust had won a landmark decision, on an Independent Review Process (IRP), at the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) New York. DCA Trust had prevailed against ICANN in an IRP hearing. The panelists in the declaration stated that ICANN has violated its Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation following an expert determination and stated that: "both the actions and inactions of the Board with respect to the application of DCA Trust relating to the .AFRICA gTLD were inconsistent with the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws of ICANN". Aside from being victorious, the DCA vs ICANN precedential value also includes that all IRPs were pronounced as “binding” after DCA’s win. The IRP Declaration may be found here.
Years of multiple Lawyers wrangling and ill-performances that betrayed DCA's case and the Internet Community
.....Essentially, the DCA's trial court lawyer at BNSK Law firm ascribed losing DCA's case at trial court to the same statement DCA lawyer made during the IRP - as being the only forum for redress. In this regard, when called to clarify at the court's JE trial, the IRP Lawyer, Mr. Arif Ali had also refused to defend this statement, citing he can't provide testimony to his own statement, as it will affect his current IRP practice.

.....Unfortunately, the same position was held after taking DCA's case in appeal, abet the last minute. The main reason DCA chose Dechert was seeking the representation of an experienced lawyer who understands the "ICANN process" and had recurring wins against ICANN.  To DCA's surprise, Dechert arranged for the alternate Jr. Counsel instead, who was an apprentice on such a case. This last-minute unexpected switch and confrontation by DCA have caused a major rift between DCA and Dechert, particularly while DCA's lawyers were well aware that ICANN's veteran Lawyer was scheduled to appear during the final argument.

.....It was evident in the final hour, that the Judges did not get any convincing answers from the Lawyer presenting DCA's case, as they probed and frustratingly asked for clarifications such as "this is a big and important case, and we want to get it right", also in relation to the 2nd IRP "are there any procedures that DCA should have followed" or "we heard the factual errors, but what exactly is the error in law"?

.... In this regard, the judges seem to have understood the weight of the case more like ICANN vs. the Internet community, just like the DCA IRP panel did, and not a plight of an individual organization. The major decision in the court case was on overturning the waiver due to alleged fraud, as much as enforcing a "binding" ruling. Therefore, DCA felt Dechert's Sr. Counsel who represented DCA during the IRP and throughout the Appeal case should have easily made the oral argument to mitigate the answers his apprentice, the Jr. Counsel could not respond to by the Judges. DCA sees this as a huge calculated mistake by Dechert to avoid a negative outcome in lieu of self-protection.
.....DCA knew that appeal was a 50/50 chance of winning, however, DCA also understood and stressed to our Lawyers that the oral argument is the key to winning an appeal case, especially after getting a negative tentative, which DCA did. DCA, therefore, feels betrayed that Dechert's Sr. Counsel's lack of cooperation to present the oral argument in appeal clarifying the statement made during the IRP, particularly after failing to do the same at the JE trial for our Lawyers, as a conflict of interest which in hindsight contributed as a major factor in DCA's losing its case at both the trial court and the appeal court.

..... This long and expensive legal journey had a share of success and setbacks both at the trial court and in subsequent appeals:

.... There was an occasion Dechert missed the appeals filing deadline and put DCA's case at risk when ICANN asked for a dismissal. This took back-and-forth litigation even before the initial briefs were filed.

....In the case of the trial court, BNSK Lawyers failed to object to the two-day JE bench trial that ICANN brought against DCA, despite DCA's as a client's insisting to do so and the presiding Judge also making the same remarks that the JE did not apply to his opinion. This decision not to object by BNSK, resulted in the bench trial proceeding that blocked DCA from being heard on its merit and to then go to Appeal. ICANN’s appeal brief affirms DCA's position stating - “DCA did not object to the JE". Initially, in costly litigation, BNSK has also mistakenly filed and litigated DCAs cases at the wrong jurisdiction for nearly 9 months retracting all DCA’s gains from a positive ruling by the Federal Judge when it got remanded to a lower court. Even so, DCA won the first tentative ruling at the trial court that the Estoppel did not apply and a jury trial was scheduled. Subsequently, an unfortunate mistrial was declared as the first Judge retired and a second bench trial was ordered afresh, where the second Judge ruled in favor of ICANN. Even so, the BNSK Lawyer was missing in action on the date the Judge was to rule on the positive tentative DCA got. Yet another huge and embarrassing error was that BNSK stipulated this favorable ruling of DCA at the urging of ICANN, that it won't be considered by the next Judge.

.....Irrespective of such actions, word wrangling between Lawyers, ill-performances, and masquerades, the loss of DCAs case at both the trial and the appeal court has now buried DCA’s case from being heard on its merit at any tribunal in the US.

......A major tragedy for the Internet Community!!

....This case is not just a major loss for DCA, it is for the internet community that has been fighting a dysfunctional IRP process for a decade. The implication is clear. A blanket Waiver is applied by a powerful corporation to hide its truth and lies.
 
....DCA also understands that ICANN's loss of DCA's case in overturning the waiver would have had a direct impact on the ICANN's IRP process and its practitioners who benefit from it, given the risk that ICANN applicants would rather have an opt-out option to courts instead of the merry-go-round IRPs that ICANN has structured and thus advocating.

The Internet community should probe!
DCA Trust reaction to the final outcome
....In her response to the loss of this long-protracted battle against ICANN, Ms. Sophia Bekele, the Founder of DCA Trust gave her statement to DCA, saying:...
Place
“We are very disappointed with the rulings of both the trial and appeal court. I have been personally vested in this case from the very beginning. I have a book worth of comments, which is coming.  But the unfortunate situation is not even that DCA lost, it is how ICANN got away with what it did to DCA.  

.....Judicially estopping DCA means that the alleged fraudulent actions of ICANN will not be tried in US court in which case, then ICANN will get away with such actions that it has consciously committed against an injured party (DCA Trust), thereby benefiting directly from its own wrongdoing. DCA therefore should not have gone home without relief.

.....DCA may have lost on a technicality, but still maintained a moral victory in the court of people’s opinion, as our case against ICANN still remains true, thanks to the unredacted Independent Review Panel (IRP) report, which DCA fought to make public to make its voice heard.  

.....Despite this, it is quite embarrassing for all DCA’s defenses to be outmaneuvered by ICANN’s Lawyers on such an open/shut case. Our lawyers included Harvard graduates and a former clerk of the US Supreme court, yet still did not win for us. While all their briefs would be well written, they were ill-prepared during the oral arguments to convince the already clueless Judges on ICANN's process or respond adequately to their questions. DCA reflects on how it had done better telling its own story than with legal representation.

.... It is a sad day for justice, as it was never tried or served. There was never a trial on the merits of DCA’s claims, thus we never had our day in court.

Despite all these shenanigans, the .africa battle is not over!

.....My message to my fellow ICANN applicants, policy and legal practitioners - No one has to go to a second IRP and keep bleeding financially. You can still hold ICANN accountable. At a minimum, DCA has established the limitations of the Waiver in that it is not inclusive, and the Waiver can be overturned. However, when fighting an IRP it is essential that an argument is not made by your counsels that implies it is all-inclusive least Judicial Estoppel is applied against future action. Even so, such an argument may be overcome convincingly or be objected to as the lesson learned from DCA, if the Judge understands it like our first Judge or is made to do so.
Legal Representations & Costs
.....DotConnectAfrica Trust was represented in the IRP proceedings by Mr. Arif Ali, while a Partner at Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP in 2015, who also represented DCA Trust during the appeal proceedings, along with Mr. Mike McGinley, Partner at Dechert LLP, both top ten International Law firms. During the trial, DCA was represented by Ethan Brown, Partner at BNSK, a boutique Law firm in Los Angeles California. ICANN was represented by the veteran ICANN Lawyer Mr. Jeffery LeVee in all the DCA vs. ICANN cases, who gave ICANN a strong defense.

....The cost of the legal fees for the past decade including the IRP and trial court efforts plus other legal consulting fees amount to nearly USD 2,000,000.00. The most recent appeal cost by Dechert was an agreed fixed fee of USD 170,000.00 which was exponential compared to other similar firms. Even so, Dechert still wanted to renegotiate a fee hike for USD 500,000, just before the oral argument, which DCA thought was unethical and did not pay. The cost with two bench trials was USD 1,000,000.00 plus. Everyone got paid for what they asked for, except DCA. This is without even considering the over USD 600,000.00 spent on project investment. So, there was no justice in DCA walking away with no relief.
The parties relating to the.Africa domain dispute &
their current status
DotConnectAfrica Trust is a Mauritius-based charitable organization with operations in Nairobi, Kenya, and had applied for the .Africa name under the Global Internet Expansion Program of ICANN that was launched in 2012 to introduce new generic domain names. DCA’s six-year grassroots “yes2dotAfrica” global awareness .Africa Campaign has been credited by the Domain Industry rating agencies as one of 50 most attractive among 1930 global TLDs applied for during its time, based also on its pre-registrations which eventually benefited ZACR. DCA has also received many honors and unsponsored media coverage which at the time amounted to nearly 30 million global views. DCA Trust continued to date with its highly acclaimed Miss.Africa Digital trust activities assisting women and youth across Africa in digital empowerment. Its seed-fund activities that are funded have now stretched to 12 countries in Africa and have won many accolades, awards, and recognition from global media and international institutions including the UNITU. While at ICANN the principle of DCA has also been instrumental in championing the implementation of global policy on IDNs impacting global underrepresented communities, as well as the global internet governance debate on gTLDs and its policy and legal implementation.
 
ICANN is a global, California-based non-profit that administers the unique system of Internet names, numbers, addresses, and protocol parameters that underpin the technical architecture of the Internet Domain Name System (DNS). As of today, its management as a custodian of the internet governance organization remains controversial with nearly 21 IRPs filed against the organization to date and various court cases concerning their global gTLD program that was launched in 2012.
 
ZACR, the proxy applicant for the AU, received its .africa delegation from ICANN and made it available to the African public on the 4th of July 2017. “As of January 2021, there are about 28,038 registered .africa domains from 70 accredited registrars,” says the .Africa Wikipedia. Against a billion population of Africa, this is a ridiculously low number. In addition in July 2021, ZACR has reportedly been given notice of termination of its contract for the country code .za domain name from the South African government, which it was managing under its previous incarnation Uniforum SA. Reports cited “strained relations” and “price gouging”. Uniforum SA has administered the .za name since 1995, after a delegation from ICANN, and has been a monopoly in the country and used such experience to bid for .africa.
 
AfriNic is the Internet agency that is in charge of issuing IP addresses in Africa.  Many of its associates and founders, also named in the Appeals court report, had become public opponents of DCA and its founder as a result of supporting the AUC/ZACR bid for .africa and ICANN’s US transition agenda.  Afrinic in recent years is reportedly in a “crisis”. It has been smeared with a high-profile court case in Mauritius concerning irregularities and corruption allegations relating to a deal it made with a Chinese national who has alleged a legitimate claim against the organization.  
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African Union Commission (AUC), the 55-country representative of Africa was defeated single-handedly by DCA Trust in Dakar Senegal, as they tried to request special treatment from ICANN to have the .africa domain be reserved to them under a “special legislative protection” and failed at DCA’s opposition. Following that, DCA also defeated and won an opposition by AUC which used its political platform at ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) to orchestrate an illegitimate objection against DCA’s application. Finally, despite all the efforts to block DCA’s rights to .africa and hordes of advice by its own “AUC dotafrica taskforce” made up of the same AfriNic Internet community above, the toothless AUC still did not get the rights to the .africa.  The behind the scene contract AUC signed with ZACR was also exposed illegitimate by DCA to the “ICANN evaluators”, which despite their action or inaction, left ZACR with solitary rights to .africa.  Such is the tragedy of an African story.
All documents related to the DCA Trust Vs ICANN case are available at the following portals: https://dotconnectafrica.org/media/communications/dca-trust-v-icann/

Queries for this update can be sent to press.africa@dotconnectafrica.org