BY SAM ALFAN.
Three directors of giant mobile manufacturer Nokia Corporation are wanted by the Kenya court.
The court summoned the directors to plead to charges of illegally obtaining tax information of Techno Service LTD.
Milimani Senior resident Magistrate David Ndugi issued the fresh summons after the directors namely Roschier Attorneys LTS, Rajee Suri and Aapo Saariviti failed to honour the earlier orders to appear in court.
“Summons to issue to all accused persons who are in Europe in order to take plea vitually on March 16, 2021 at 2pm,”ordered magistrate Ndugi.
The court further ordered the Milimani Administrator together with the ICT department to organise the video conferencing on March 16 to enable the accused plead to the charges virtually.
Ndugi further ordered the complainant in the case to serve the accused persons with the summons to appear in person for plea on the scheduled date.
The directors have been ordered to take plea after the court late last year allowed Techno Service Ltd to privately prosecute them for illegally obtaining its tax information for use before an international arbitration court.
While allowing the application principal Magistrate Esther Kimilu ruled that despiteTechno service ltd through it’s director Bulent lodging a complaint with the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in December 5 2018, no steps have been taken to prosecute Nokia or its agents.
“The applicant(Technoservice Ltd) is hereby granted leave to institute and proceed with private prosecution proceedings against Nokia Corporation, Roschier Attorneys LTS, Rajee Suri and Aapo Saariviti in person, their directors and agents,” ordered Kimilu.
She also directed Technoservice ltd file a draft charge sheet within 30 days and said the DPP is free to take over the proceedings, after it has been filed.
Nokia and its agents have been accused of unlawfully obtaining its tax filings and records from the Registrar of Companies and used the information in a case that was pending before the ICC Court of Arbitration pitting the two firms.
The company alleged that Nokia obtained the information for purposes of defeating justice in the arbitration proceedings.
The giant Nokia or its agents are said to have obtained the information from Registrar of Companies and Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) between September 2018 and March 2019
The magistrate further confounded why the DPP despite admitting of being aware of the complaint had never taken steps either to direct its investigations or in the alternative prosecuting it anyway.
“Tax records are confidential, yet it would appear that the applicant’s tax filings were disclosed to the respondents or their representatives who were able to use the records in the ICC arbitration,” noted the Magistrate.
Nokia had opposed the application to allow private against them saying that the filings were defective and that they were foreigners and therefore required to be served by diplomatic means.
The company further contended that the applications are an abuse of the court process as the issues raised therein were subject of ICC Arbitration case No. 23513/FS which was terminated on February, 2020.
Nokia also said Technoservice was litigious and the case was a demonstration of its owner’s vindictive attitude against Nokia.
However the DCI through constable Daniel Githiari filed an affidavit saying that they received a complaint and that they did not progress the investigations because the complainant did not turn up to record a statement and or to avail further documents that were needed for investigations.
