BY SAM ALFAN.
Foreign investors can now enjoy some peaceful time during this Christmas after the court restored orders stopping the sale of 2000 acres of land they own near Tatu City.
The land, worth Sh10billion, is within the Kofinaf coffee estates and not part of the Tatu City urban development project.
Commercial Court Judge Francis Tuiyot ruled it was in the interest of all the warring parties to preserve the properties in Kiambu County at the centre of an acrimonious fall-out between the foreign and local partners.
Justice Charles Kariuki had issued conservatory orders on March 24.
The sanctions, which were first imposed against the group allied to former Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor Nahashon Nyagah and industrialist Vimal Shah on May 12, 2015, will remain in force pending the outcome of the suit.
The international investors have accused Kenyan minority partners Nyagah and Shah of attempting to alienate and sell the land in Kiambu County to interested parties in a deliberate attempt to swindle them before the ownership dispute is heard and determined.
Senior Counsel Ahmednassir Abdullahi, who represented Kofinaf Company Ltd, had argued before that the properties were at risk of being off-loaded to prospective buyers, and the foreign investors were likely to suffer great financial loss.
The conservatory orders had lapsed on March 15 when the matter was mentioned before the Deputy Registrar without the knowledge of representatives of the international businessmen.
They had protested about the likelihood of the property changing hands illegally.
The 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.
Lawyer Nelson Havi, who is representing the Nyagah group, claimed that the suit was withdrawn and the injunction had paralysed the operations of the firms involved in the project.
The matter will be heard on March 1.
