Airtel fights jail push in SportPesa dispute
Tuesday February 23 2021
By SAM KIPLAGAT
Summary
Executives of telecoms company Airtel have launched a fight against contempt of court charges which put them at risk of fines or jail terms.
The mobile operator is seeking protection against a contempt suit filed by the betting firm which has accused it of failing to unblock gaming pay bill accounts and short codes used by its partner Milestones Games Limited.
Executives of telecoms company Airtel have launched a fight against contempt of court charges which put them at risk of fines or jail terms after the mobile operator was sucked into a dispute between the State and betting firm, SportPesa.
SportPesa moves to court to force BCLB officials to obey previous court orders
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Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB) officials now risk jail time for violating court orders barring them from interfering with the operations of the gaming platform SportPesa.
This comes after Milestone Games Limited, the company that operates the SportPesa brand in Kenya, moved to the High Court seeking to have the Board’s Chairman Cyrus Maina and board members Peter Mbugi, Peter Kanaiya, Paul Njaga, Sabrina Kanini, Joy Masinde and Daniel Koech jailed for contempt of court.
“The action to belittle and disregard court orders at will cannot be taken lightly and should be arrested at the earliest opportunity,” reads the application by Milestone filed in the High Court.
SportPesa linked firm seeks jailing of regulator team
Monday December 21 2020
By SAM KIPLAGAT
Summary
BCLB terminated Milestone’s licence on December 4, 2020, a decision the regulator said was based on the company changing its shareholding structure without seeking approval.
Milestone said in a court filing on Friday that BCLB’s decision ignored ex parte orders stopping the regulator from any action that hurts its business.
The company says the ex parte orders were served on BCLB on the same day the alleged contemptuous regulatory action was taken.
Milestone Games Limited, the company that is fighting to operate under the SportPesa betting brand, has asked the court to jail officials of the Betting Control and Licensing Board for cancelling its licence.