NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 12 – The High Court on Thursday found that it could not hold the majority shareholder in the Tatu City project, Stephen Jennings, liable for contempt.
His estranged project partners – former Central Bank Governor Nahashon Nyagah and industrialist Vimal Shah –had accused him of contravening Justice Joseph Sergon’s orders restraining him from making unsubstantiated utterances against them.
The Nyagah and Shah party cited as proof, a video of Jennings – posted on social media – speaking on their dispute.
Justice Roselyne Aburili however found that that they had failed to prove defamation by failing to provide authentication of said video.
Senior Counsel Ahmednassir Abdullahi who is representing the international businessman, argued that Jennings was justified to protest an alleged US 100 million dollar fraud attempt by his local partners. The warring parties are embroiled in a plethora of commercial disputes in court relating to the ambitious project.
Justice Aburili ruled that the local shareholders did not provide sufficient evidence to prove that the majority Tatu stakeholder deliberately portrayed them as fraudsters over their abortive acquisition of the more than 2,000 acres of rich farmland in Kiambu County worth Sh5.3billion.
The international investor has accused its Kenyan minority partners of attempting to alienate and sell the land in Kiambu County to third parties in an attempted swindle before their ownership dispute is heard and concluded and have secured orders blocking the sale and transfer of the prime land.
The foreign investors say they had already sold the prime land to a local developer, Daykio Plantations. but have been unable to transfer ownership upon discovery that their local rivals had unlawfully secured possession of the property through Purple Saturn Properties Ltd.