A law firm associated with Makueni Governor Mutula Kilonzo Junior, Kilonzo and Company Advocates has filed Ksh69.7 million legal fees against former President Daniel Moi’s estate.
The bill followed a long-running row brought against the former president by media entrepreneur and owner of Royal Media Services S.K Macharia.
Moreover, Kilonzo and Company Advocates submitted the bill to the High Court.
The law firm which initially belonged to the late senator Mutula Kilonzo and is currently registered under his son Mutula Kilonzo Junior and daughter Kethi Kilonzo defended Moi in the case filed by SK Macharia in 2003.
In the lawsuit, the media mogul accused former president Daniel Moi and the former head of public service and secretary to the Cabinet, Joseph Arap Letting, of violation of his rights and unjust enrichment through economic duress.
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According to the documents filed in court, an advocate from the law firm appeared in court 21 times between December 3, 2004, and November 28, 2022.
SK Macharia’s Case
Furthermore, in the suit Mr. Macharia, through his company Madhupaper International, allegedly borrowed Ksh50 million from three institutions in 1981 to set up a plant for producing tissue paper from recycled wastepaper.
Madhupaper gave the lending institutions a charge over all its assets as security for the loan.
However, after failing to pay the loan, the lenders including a local bank and the Kenya National Capital Corporation, placed Madhupaper under receivership in 1989 to recover the loan, which stood at Ksh54 million.
Nonetheless, the then High Court Judge Richard Kuloba ruled in favor of Mr Macharia in January 2003 noting that the lenders abused the influence of the then President Moi and Mr Letting, in applying unconscionable pressure and economic duress on SK Macharia and his company to overpay a loan by over Ksh56 million.
Conversely, in 2008 a three-judge-bench of the Court of Appeal including Justices Philip Tunoi, Erastus Githinji and Onyango Otieno (all retired) overturned the verdict.
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No Evidence of Compulsion or Duress
The judges said there was no evidence of any compulsion or duress on Mr. Macharia and his firm to pay the money.
In addition, they said the High Court was wrong in finding that KCB and the other lenders had roped Mr. Letting into the affair “for the purpose of creating terror” on Macharia and Madhupaper.
According to the court ruling SK Macharia and Madhupaper voluntarily committed themselves to pay by entering a valid deed.
Thereafter, the media tycoon unsuccessfully tried moving to the Supreme Court, seeking compensation of Ksh2.4 billion but the case was dismissed in 2013.
