Kenya, July 1 , 2026 – Chief Justice Martha Koome has been drawn into a fresh legal battle over the proposed KSh340 billion ($2.3 billion) sale of Diageo Plc’s majority stake in East African Breweries Plc (EABL) to Japan’s Asahi Group Holdings, as rival litigants seek opposing interventions on how the cases should be handled.<\/p>\n
At the centre of the dispute is a request by EABL for the Chief Justice to consolidate all court cases challenging the transaction under a single High Court judge or court station, arguing that multiple lawsuits filed in different courts could lead to conflicting rulings and create uncertainty around one of the largest corporate acquisitions in East Africa.<\/p>\n
However, JILK Construction Company and its co-petitioners have opposed the request, urging the Chief Justice to reject EABL’s application, saying such a move would prejudice litigants who had filed earlier claims related to the brewer and its parent company.<\/p>\n
The latest development transforms what began as a corporate acquisition into a broader test of judicial case management, investor confidence and access to justice.<\/p>\n
The transaction involves the sale of Diageo Plc’s 65 percent stake in EABL and its 53.68% shareholding in UDV Kenya to Asahi Group Holdings. The deal, announced in December 2025, would give the Japanese beverage giant control of Diageo Kenya Limited, the investment vehicle through which Diageo owns its stake in EABL, subject to regulatory approvals and the conclusion of ongoing court proceedings.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, EABL wrote to Chief Justice Koome on June 23, arguing that successive petitions filed in different High Court stations have created uncertainty after Nairobi courts declined to halt the transaction while the High Court in Machakos later issued conservatory orders temporarily freezing its implementation.<\/p>\n
In the letter prepared by Iseme, Kamau & Maema Advocates, the brewer accused some litigants of deliberately filing cases in different courts in search of favourable rulings.<\/p>\n
“Our client is concerned that persons desirous of hindering completion of the transaction are now engaged in forum shopping across separate court stations,” EABL’s lawyers wrote.<\/p>\n
The lawyers further argued that the practice “amounts to a clear abuse of the court process and offends the principle of judicial comity between courts of concurrent jurisdiction.”<\/p>\n
EABL wants all current and future High Court proceedings relating to the transaction assigned to one judge or court station to avoid inconsistent decisions and expedite the hearing of the cases. The brewer has also suggested that specialized tribunals established under Kenya’s capital markets and competition laws be considered where appropriate.<\/p>\n
The company maintains that concluding the transaction would provide certainty for shareholders, employees, suppliers and investors across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, while generating an estimated Sh42 billion in capital gains tax for the Kenyan government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kenya, July 1 , 2026 – Chief Justice Martha Koome has been drawn into a fresh legal battle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21250],"tags":[2582,31160,21926,31164,31162,31167,21927,31166,31158,31156,31161,31163,31168,31165,3669,345,633,31159,3109,31155,4110,31157,254,20221,18,14],"class_list":["post-74398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-diageo","tag-africa","tag-african-business","tag-african-culture","tag-african-development","tag-african-economy","tag-african-education","tag-african-entertainment","tag-african-healthcare","tag-african-media","tag-african-news","tag-african-politics","tag-african-society","tag-african-sports","tag-african-technology","tag-analysis","tag-breaking-news","tag-business","tag-continental-news","tag-current-affairs","tag-dawan-africa","tag-diageo","tag-east-africa","tag-economy","tag-horn-of-africa","tag-news","tag-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116846065300875387","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}