In court filings, Doric Industries claimed that for a year to March, 2015, it would send cheques to Aksharap Real Estate Ltd to cover rent for two go-downs along Mombasa Road, but that the landlord would refuse to bank them.
Doric Industries is the local firm behind the Ric shoe polish brand. When Doric Industries started operations in 2002, Aksharap Real Estate’s go-downs along Mombasa Road became its first home.
But the relationship forged in mutual benefit started to turn sour on May 31, 2013, when the second five-year and six-month lease expired.
The two were haggling over the new rent rates after that expiry, and Aksharap Real Estate allegedly sent back any cheques Doric Industries issued between March, 2014 and March, 2015.
Doric Industries said that on March 2, 2015, it issued yet another cheque for rent, which at that point totalled Sh274,000 per month, but Aksharap Real Estate refused to accept it and sent the document back.
That was the last time Doric Industries attempted to pay rent, but also one chapter in the book of a dispute that would hover around Kenya’s courts 11 years after the tenant eventually left acrimoniously.
Lapse of lease
At the lapse of the second lease, Doric Industries was being charged Sh274,000 per month for two go-downs. That amount was exclusive of service charges and water.
Doric Industries used the go-down 18 as an office and storage space for finished products and some raw materials. Go-down 17 was the main operations centre, where the shoe products were manufactured.
Aksharap Real Estate wanted to revise the rates to Sh360,000 per month in the new lease agreement, a move that Doric Industries declined.
Two court cases filed in 2011 and 2013 returned orders barring Aksharap Real Estate from harassing its tenant for rent, and a finding that Doric Industries was a protected tenant who could only be evicted through terms stated in the tenancy contract.
The 2011 case was withdrawn on June 19, 2012, after an out-of-court settlement. Under the settlement terms, Doric Industries was to settle rent arrears, and Aksharap Real Estate was to stop harassing its tenant.
Doric Industries paid the Sh2.19 million it maintained was the total arrears, but the landlord continued to demand further payments and even sent auctioneers to recover the disputed sums, triggering the 2013 case.
In the 2013 case, the court blocked the auction attempt and made a finding that Doric Industries was a protected tenant.
Auctioneers move in
The court would rule on March 26, 2014, that Aksharap Real Estate could not disown Doric Industries as its tenant, following the landlord’s decision to accept rent even after the lapse of the lease.
On May 17, 2015, the go-down 18, which housed the manufacturer’s offices and storage for some products, burnt down. After the fire, Doric Industries abandoned its use, which would in another court case become the subject of debate on whether the space was occupied by the manufacturer or surrendered to the landlord.
On August 19, 2015, the dispute boiled over when auctioneers entered the premises and carted away machinery, raw materials and finished products. Aksharap Real Estate had instructed the auctioneers to recover Sh10.78 million in rent arrears.
It emerged that the auctioneer had moved to the Chief Magistrate’s Court and obtained orders allowing auctioneers to move in and recover the rent arrears.
The auctioneer failed to inform the magistrate that there was an existing case at the High Court, in which orders barring eviction or rent distress had been issued. This meant that the auctioneer had tricked a magistrate into going against a superior court.
Doric returned to the High Court, which then issued orders directing Aksharap Real Estate and the auctioneers to return everything that had been lifted from the go-down six days earlier.
Aksharap Real Estate and the auctioneers disobeyed the court orders, and Doric Industries filed a contempt of court application. The contemnors told the court that they thought the earlier orders had lapsed when they were seeking orders to allow the auction. The court fined Aksharap and auctioneer Nathan Pala Muhatia Sh5 million.
Mr Muhatia later said in another court case that he participated in the botched auction on behalf of another auctioneer he only identified as Lumwanji.
Mr Muhatia added that he stepped in to finish the assignment on behalf of Lumwanji, who had fallen sick.
He further revealed that he did not have any written instructions or specific documentation governing the assignment, but had been told to auction the goods to recover Sh10.78 million in rent arrears.
Despite getting favourable orders from the High Court, it was at this point that Doric Industries opted to leave, eventually relocating to Kitengela in Kajiado County, where it started afresh and still operates from.
On March 21, 2016, Doric Industries filed a fresh case against Aksharap Real Estate. The firm sought Sh277 million in damages.
Goods detained
The shoe polish maker also asked the court to award it damages for loss of business, distress and unlawful detention of its goods.
Aksharap Real Estate filed a counterclaim, seeking over Sh1 billion in rent arrears, damages for alleged breach of the out-of-court settlement from 2012, auctioneers’ fees, lost profit and legal fees.
Doric said in its filings that at the time the rent dispute was at its peak, the business would bring in revenues of Sh134 million per year, on average.
The firm held that the carting away of its equipment and goods affected business, and that Aksharap Real Estate had evicted Doric Industries in defiance of the 2014 court orders.
The landlord claimed that it only took the items to auction for rent recovery, but denied evicting Doric Industries.
‘Confined to its deathbed’
A letter from Aksharap Real Estate’s lawyers to Doric Industries’ lawyers, however, became evidence that the botched 2015 auction also amounted to eviction, and which the court relied on in its final determination.
“By removing the plaintiff’s goods and thereafter re-letting and/or informing the plaintiff that go-down no. 17 had been re-let to a third party, the defendant effectively excluded the plaintiff from possession of the premises. In the circumstances, the court finds that the distress carried out on August 19, and August 20 2015, insofar as it related to go-down no. 17, amounted to the eviction of the plaintiff,” the court said on March 12, 2026, in a judgment that was a partial win for both parties.
Doric Industries told the court that after the removal and refusal to return its equipment, business stalled and it could not keep up with monthly loan repayments of Sh2 million, or paying suppliers whose debts grew to Sh34 million.
The firm painted a picture of being confined to its deathbed.
But the court declined to award damages on those heads, ruling that the connection between carting away of Doric’s equipment and the manufacturer’s inability to service loans and debt was too remote to trigger the award claimed.
Doric Industries also failed to submit evidence of the loans and debts owed. The court added that Doric Industries also failed the evidence test in claiming Sh106.5 million in the value of equipment and goods carted away from the go-down in 2015.
“Furthermore, the quotations which the plaintiff relied upon to show the alleged prices of the machines that were supposedly carted cannot amount to the value of the said items, taking into account depreciation, and the fact that the quotations were procured after the act. The ideal situation was for the plaintiff to get the actual receipts that were issued when the said machines were purchased, and delivery notes, indicating when the said machines were received,” the court held.
For the Sh134 million that Doric claimed it lost in annual revenue and profit, the court also declined to issue an award. The firm had attached income tax receipts, which showed an average of Sh134 million annual revenue between 2011 and 2014.
The court noted that in 2011, Doric Industries recorded a net profit of Sh4.9 million, and then Sh5.1 million and Sh1.1 million in 2012 and 2013, respectively. In 2014, the firm made a net loss of Sh8.4 million.
That loss, the judge said, undermined the claim for damages for lost profits. It was in this case that Doric Industries said it had received Sh20 million compensation from its insurer for the 2015 fire. The manufacturer argued that the building was burned to the ground, hence it could not be said to be in occupation of the go-down. But Aksharap Real Estate insisted that Doric Industries did not formally hand the keys to that go-down back to the landlord, and that there were still some of the shoe polish maker’s items in the space, hence rent was still chargeable.
The court found that Aksharap Real Estate lawyers had admitted to their counterparts representing Doric Industries that the go-down had been burnt to the ground and became uninhabitable, hence rent could not be chargeable for that space after the 2015 fire.
Ultimately, the court awarded Doric Industries Sh3 million for general damages for the unlawful distress for rent by its former landlord. The amount was to attract interest at the court rate of 12 per cent per year, from the March 12, 2026 judgment date until payment in full.
In Aksharap Real Estate’s counterclaim, the court held that only the claim for profit arising from lost rent was proved, and awarded the landlord Sh3.8 million. The court maintained that the rent applicable was the Sh137,000 for each go-down.
As the firm vacated each unit on different dates, the rent arrears for the go-down that burned down were calculated at Sh1.64 million. Arrears for the unit vacated after the auctioneers struck were calculated at Sh2.19 million. The court allowed the interest rate of 24 per cent sought by Aksharap Real Estate from August 19, 2015, until payment in full.
Doric Industries managed to bounce back, with its shoe care brands still on supermarket shelves.
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