East African Breweries Limited has written to Chief Justice Martha Koome seeking her intervention in an escalating wave of court cases aimed at blocking the proposed Sh340 billion sale of British drinks giant Diageo’s 65 percent stake in the regional brewer to Japan’s Asahi Group Holdings. EABL warned that the piling up of parallel suits and contradictory court orders threatens to throw one of Kenya’s biggest-ever corporate deals into legal chaos.
At the heart of the dispute is Diageo PLC’s plan to sell its entire 65 percent shareholding in EABL — held through an investment vehicle called Diageo Kenya Limited — to Tokyo-based Asahi Group Holdings in a transaction worth approximately $2.3 billion, or Sh340 billion. The deal also covers Diageo’s 53.68 percent stake in spirits manufacturer UDV Kenya, with EABL retaining the remaining shares and management control of that subsidiary.
In a letter dated June 23, 2026, EABL’s advocates — Iseme, Kamau & Maema — urged the Chief Justice to take administrative action to consolidate the multiple High Court proceedings challenging the deal. The brewer cautioned that cases filed across different High Court stations risked producing contradictory rulings from courts of equal jurisdiction over the same matter, which it described as an abuse of court process and a violation of the principle of judicial comity.
EABL pointed out that Nairobi courts had by then declined on three separate occasions to halt the transaction. On April 9, a bid by beer distributor Bia Tosha Distributors Limited to stop the deal was dismissed. On June 18, the court threw out a similar application by JILK Construction Company and others. On June 22, yet another Nairobi court declined to grant interim orders, finding that the public interest favoured allowing the transaction to proceed.
The complication, EABL said, was that on that very same June 18 — the day JILK’s application was dismissed in Nairobi — a petitioner named Christine Irungu filed a fresh case in Machakos and walked away with conservatory orders blocking Diageo, EABL, and Asahi from completing the transaction pending further court directions. EABL clarified it was not disputing the Machakos court’s jurisdiction, but raised serious concern over what it described as forum shopping and a fragmented judicial approach to the matter.
The company also drew attention to the economic consequences of the ongoing uncertainty, noting the transaction is expected to deliver Sh42 billion in capital gains tax revenue to the Kenyan government. EABL warned that the legal impasse could hurt shareholders, employees, suppliers, distributors and investors, while chipping away at confidence in Kenya’s business and regulatory environment.
The brewer urged the Chief Justice to step in both to safeguard the integrity of the judicial process and to protect Kenya’s standing as a reliable and predictable destination for large-scale foreign investment.
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