It's a little bit Ireland too, I reckon, and a fair bit Donald Trump; without both of those the phenomenon would have been more muted.
But the world being what it is – to wit, increasingly allergic to corporate tax havens and very unpredictable at the geopolitical level – the latest AFRINIC drama played really well for South Africa in the medium- to long-term.
If you missed it, AFRINIC continues to be a shambles, to the extent that the global numbering community will have to move forward with creating rules for kicking out regional internet registries when they go bad. AFRINIC went bad a while ago, but it got particularly dramatic last week, with an election suspended mid-vote – by the British lawyer brought in to ensure its fairness.
That is what really kicked Mauritius in the teeth and made at least a couple of Europeans in high places mumble phrases to the effect of: why on Earth is AFRINIC registered in Mauritius and not South Africa?
They know as well as the next guy that Mauritius is where all the cool African kids hang out, with its corporation-friendly tax rules, its significant infrastructure for serving companies without any actual operational presence in Mauritius, and the environment it offers when poor, long-suffering directors are forced, very much against their will, to have in-person statutory meetings.
But now Mauritius is also the place that has to import foreigners with sufficient legal standing to satisfy the likes of ICANN that there isn't funny business going on. Which came after a bad run with courts that frankly showed no understanding of how AFRINIC functions or its critical importance.
Would South Africa have done any better? It's hard to forget that company hijackings have happened in SA, and that complex commercial court cases have gone a bit sideways. But typically, at a high court level and certainly beyond that, you have some stone-cold expert judges who will only need IPv4 constraints explained to them once. And should you need a world-renowned jurist who nobody can accuse of hanky-panky to chair something, there are places where you can tap any random silk-clad shoulder and have a viable candidate.
You won't have to import Simon Davenport KC from Britain, as did AFRINIC. You may have Americans muttering about African justice, they always do, but they won't be able to name any other jurisdiction on the continent they would trust more.
There is a lot behind that reputation for SA's juristic infrastructure. Some people still remember the global coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial; others are aware, at least in a vague sense, that South African courts regularly defy the South African government, and there's nothing quite like that to build trust in a legal system.
It also helps that people in tech in particular can name South African companies they respect. For some it is Naspers, for others MTN, it doesn't matter; Mauritius does not have homegrown household names, so it can't be as serious about big business.
Nor is there much chance of any other jurisdiction stealing South Africa's place as the least risky jurisdiction on the continent.
Meanwhile, Switzerland having to back away from offering criminal-friendly levels of privacy and, more recently, the likes of Ireland being squeezed on its tax rate shows there is a time limit on how long such special jurisdictions are likely to be useful; every domicile will be like every other eventually.
Until then, do you optimise for tax savings, or for safety? What if you can't project those savings into the future indefinitely? What if you can, with fair certainty, predict that criminal techniques will evolve, and that changes to trade rules could come fast, and that shareholders will be increasingly allergic to big-downside risk? Do you want to be the person who has to stand up at the AGM and explain why operations at the African subsidiary have been crippled while Mauritius figures out whether you are allowed to reconstitute the board after allegations of corruption in a different country?
That's the thinking that AFRINIC seems to have triggered, and I doubt it will be the last such instance. Nor is there much chance of any other jurisdiction stealing South Africa's place as the least risky jurisdiction on the continent.
The only real question is who will lead the herd if a head-office migration starts from Mauritius to South Africa. It may or may not be the middle-tier tech sector, which is generally pretty nimble compared to both other sectors and their giant peers. But I'd bet the next iteration of AFRINIC won't have a Mauritius HQ after the dust settles, which could make things awkward in particular for tech companies that choose not to follow it.
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