BY SAM ALFAN.
Kisumu Senator Prof Tom Ojienda has suffered a major blow after the High Court rejected his bid to review a ruling that taxed his bill of costs at Sh.1.144,167.58.
Justice Wambua Mongare dismissed Prof Ojienda’s application saying the application has no merit. Ojienda’s law firm lost a claim of Sh62 million from the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) for legal services offered few years.
Court upheld the Taxing Master decision to review Ojienda’s bill of costs from what he had demanded to Sh.1.144,167.58.
“I therefore find no reason to interfere with the Taxing Officer’s decision of 22 July, 2021. The Application is dismissed with costs to Music Copyright Society of Kenya,” ruled Wambua.
The judge ruled that she was persuaded that despite the fact that the suit was settled before going into full trial, it is not true, as alleged by the Prof Ojienda that the taxing master did not consider the gravity of the suit before taxing the instruction fees.
In the said Bill of cost dated 9th August 2021 Prof Ojienda sought to awarded as instructions fee under item I Sh62,474,495.60 from Music Copyright Society of Kenya but taxation master after hearing the matter taxed it off and awarded him over Sh.1.4 million.
The ODM senator filed the application seeking a review of the taxing master’s ruling.
Prof Ojienda further sought for an order to have the court interrogate the costs in light of actual work done and adopt his proposal on taxation of the costs.
The senior counsel also wanted the court to order his bill of costs taxed afresh.
His application was grounded on the fact that a Bill Of Costs arising from his representation of the Music Copyright Society of Kenya in a case in 2018 against Music Publishers Association of Kenya Limited.
He said the value of the subject matter was Sh1 million which, according to Ojienda derived from the registration, income, assets and expenses of Music Copyright Society of Kenya.
Ojienda filed a supplementary affidavit sworn on 27th October 2021 by managing partner through which he averred that MCSK reached an out of court settlement without his knowledge.
The move led the Ojienda firm to approach court to claim the amounts owing that the subject matter of the suit, in his view, was Sh1billion and was calculated based on the monies that were receivable by the MCSK in the year 2018.
He said the amount would be received precisely through money/loyalties from copyrighted musical work of its 13,961 members, the respective 13,916 deeds of Management Organizations around the world evident from the MCSK’s catalogue that monies were subject of the suit.
MCSK opposed the application arguing that in charging fees as drawn in the bill under item 1 at Sh. 35 million as instruction fees and purporting to base the same on the alleged music catalogue worth Sh.1 billion purportedly owned by the Company and in the absence of evidential material to support the same, the same was mere allegations and not true or possible and could not be sustained.
MCSK agreed with the Taxing Master and stated that the assessment was correct and the taxing master correctly exercised her discression on the same while basing taxation on applicable scale and in light of amount of work actually done by Ojienda on the matter
