The National Treasury has contracted G&A Advocates to represent Kenya in an arbitration case stemming from the Kenya Kwanza administration’s revocation of a Sh6.19 billion sale of Telkom Kenya shares to London-based Helios Investment Partners.
Kenya will pay G&A Advocates Sh358 million to defend the case filed by Helios, through its special purpose vehicle Jamhuri Holdings Ltd (JHL).
Former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration had initiated the sale of 60 per cent of Telkom Kenya shares to Helios by the time the Kenya Kwanza administration assumed office in September, 2022.
President William Ruto’s administration in October 2022 rescinded the Cabinet resolution from four months earlier, to ink a sale deal with JHL.
The Treasury is keen to defend the multi-billion-shilling case to avoid any damages that could be awarded against Kenya by the arbitrator, if the claim were to remain uncontested.
The arbitration filings and proceedings are private, which makes it difficult to obtain details of the grounds of the suit by Jamhuri holdings.
The appointment follows a battle for the contract for legal representation at the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB), in which Okoth & Kiplagat Advocates challenged the Treasury’s move to evaluate G&A Advocates’ bid.
The PPARB approved the Treasury’s award to G&A Advocates LLP on March 9, paving the way for the engagement of the firm’s advocates to represent Kenya.
Details regarding JHL’s suit against Kenya come about three years after President Ruto’s Cabinet canceled the Telkom shares deal, amid concerns over its predecessor bypassing Parliamentary approvals in the withdrawal of the sale proceeds from the Consolidated Fund.
In a tender dispute between two law firms, G&A Advocates and Okoth & Kiplagat Advocates, Treasury said it has been under pressure to secure legal representation at the London court, revealing an apparent “financial exposure.”
Treasury said it hired four top legal minds in January to represent it in the matter using a Specially Permitted Procurement Procedure (SPP) - used when standard procurement methods are impractical or impossible- “due to the urgency of the matter and the risk of financial exposure for the Government of Kenya (GOK).”
“The Respondents (National Treasury) submitted that the procurement of legal services was necessitated by urgent international arbitration proceedings under the LCIA between Jamhuri Holdings Limited and the Attorney General, on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary to the National Treasury and the GOK.
“Procurement followed a Specially Permitted Procurement Procedure…due to the urgency of the matter and the risk of financial exposure for the GOK,” a Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) ruling states.
The dispute between Kenya and JHL started in March 2023 when Controller of Budget (COB) Margaret Nyakang’o revealed that she was pressured to authorise the Sh6.19 billion withdrawal from the Consolidated Fund without MPs approval.
Dr Nyakang’o at the time accused former Treasury Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ukur Yatani of pressuring her to approve the withdrawal under Article 223 of the constitution, which allows the government to spend without seeking approval from MPs, in case of emergencies.
The Auditor-General and Parliament’s Finance and Economic Planning committee later said Treasury did not provide proper justification for using Article 223 to fund the transaction.
“There was no reason why the payment could not have been budgeted for in the normal budget process. As a result, the amount of Sh6,196,584,631 paid to JHL was not approved by the National Assembly,” the public auditor said.
The Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) and the Financial Reporting Centre (FRC) have also said that their attempts to follow the cash hit a dead end after losing track when it flowed from Mauritius to Jersey Island where Helios, the parent firm to JHL, is registered, and when auditors’ requests to visit JHL’s registered offices “in Mauritius and the United Kingdom were either declined or not responded to.”
The Cabinet in 2023 rescinded the National Treasury’s decision to spend Sh6.19 billion on the transaction in 2022 and Parliament’s Finance and Economic Planning Committee declared the expenditure irregular, actions that have not had much impact in reality, since the money had already been paid.
The matter had gone cold over the past few years, with MPs last November appearing to demand a special audit on the transaction as they aired frustrations over the slow pace of investigations into the matter.
The legal dispute now presents a new twist to a puzzle that has remained unresolved for four years, after investigative agencies in Kenya were left stranded in the pursuit of facts surrounding the 2022 sale of Telkom Kenya shares.
The PPARB’s March 9 ruling notes that the Attorney-General approved the engagement of an international barrister and two local law firms with “requisite experience in international commercial and investment arbitrations”
Leading the team of lawyers representing the State will be Eric Gumbo, Ken Melly, Moses Kipkogei and Michael Sullivan, an external counsel based in England.
Details of the new developments have come to light following the tender dispute between two law firms that competed to represent the government in the matter.
The two companies argued over their qualifications to offer legal representation for the government.
Treasury awarded G&A Advocates LLP the Sh358 million tender on January 4, 2026, beating Okoth & Kiplagat Advocates that had bid Sh380 million.
In a request for review of the tender process filed by Okoth & Kiplagat Advocates in February, it emerged that Treasury has been under pressure to appear before the London Court.
Treasury told the PPARB that its supply chain management unit was allowed to use SPP as a procurement method for the legal services to allow it to expedite the process and sign the contract quickly.
“The Respondents submitted that the timely engagement of the international barrister was crucial due to strict procedural timelines and the risk of financial exposure, as advised by the Solicitor General,” the PPARB documents state.
