Court throws out a second case filed by Dande, three others

Cytonn Investments CEO Edwin Dande during a media breakfast meeting in Nairobi, on September 30, 2020. [David Njaaga, Standard]

The Court of Appeal has dismissed a second case filed by four former employees of Britam over a Sh1 billion saga.

This time, the court found that the four, Edwin Dande, Elizabeth Nkukuu, Shiv Arora and Particia Njeri, who later formed Cytonn Investments, did not prove that their arrest and subsequent prosecution was an abuse of power.

Court of Appeal judges Asike Makhandia, Mumbi Ngugi and Pauline Nyamweya found that the Inspector General of Police and the Director of Criminal Investigations had proved that they were acting on a complaint by their former employer.

“The basis of the complaint arose from the previous relationship between the appellants and third respondent (Britam) of employee/employer which is not disputed, and from transactions that took place during the period of such employment.”

“The appellants did not provide any evidence of the third respondent’s influence or control to support their claim,” said the judges.

Out of malice

On February 4, 2021, the same judges threw out a separate case filed against the Director of Public Prosecution after finding that the accused had not proved that the decision to charge them was out of malice.

In the case, the four asked the court to block the police from arresting, harassing or interfering with their liberty and property.

The dispute arose when Britam went to court claiming that its former managers fraudulently transferred billions of shillings from its accounts and channelled them to accounts held by Acorn Ltd and its affiliates.

In an out-of-court settlement, Acorn agreed to return land that had been purchased with funds transferred from Britam.

The deal also allowed Britam to recover a five-acre piece of land in Kileleshwa, a two-and-half-acre plot in Upper Hill, 25 acres in Mlolongo and 182 acres in Lukenya.

Chief inspector Richard Koywer stated that on October 16, 2014, the then acting Britam CEO Jude Brian Anyiko Oluoch lodged a complaint that the four had fraudulently misappropriated funds out of its real estate fund.

After carrying out investigations, it was ascertained that various transactions had been made by the four before they resigned.