The High Court has blocked the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) from investigating Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) over commodity loan arrangements involving two tea factories, ruling that the anti-graft watchdog has no role in investigating private entities.
Justice William Musyoka said KTDA is a private entity and that the EACC lacked jurisdiction to investigate the contested commercial transactions because they did not involve public officers, public funds, public resources or bribery.
At the centre of the legal dispute was the EACC's March 31, 2026 notice requiring KTDA Management Services, KTDA Holdings and acting Chief Executive Francis Miano to surrender documents on commodity loan facilities involving Michimikuru Tea Factory in Meru and Litein Tea Factory in Kericho. The commission warned that failure to comply would attract criminal sanctions.
But the court quashed the notice and barred the commission from pursuing the investigation in its current form.
"If the allegations of corruption do not relate to bribery, but to other forms of corruption, then the respondent would have no mandate to conduct an investigation into such, as that would fall under the mandate of the police, specifically the Directorate of Criminal Investigations," Justice Musyoka said.
KTDA is owned by more than 600,000 smallholder tea farmers across 16 tea-growing counties. The farmers own 54 tea companies and more than 71 factories managed by KTDA subsidiaries, making the agency the country's largest manager of smallholder tea processing and marketing operations.
Tea remains one of Kenya's leading foreign exchange earners. There is long-running debate over whether the farmer-owned tea agency should be treated as a private or public body.
The court also noted there was nothing preventing the DCI from handling the matter. KTDA had told the court that the DCI was already investigating the disputed commodity loan arrangements and should be allowed to continue with its inquiry without interference from the EACC.
The dispute began in February when the EACC wrote to KTDA seeking original documents relating to commodity loans advanced to the two factories during the 2022/23 and 2024/25 financial years.
The commission said the documents were needed to investigate alleged corruption in the operation of the loans. It argued that the allegations disclosed economic crimes and that its mandate was not limited to public entities.
Investigator Ishmael Nyamache told the court that "the mandate of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act is not limited to public entities and public officers" and argued that Parliament did not intend to restrict the EACC investigations to cases involving public resources.
KTDA rejected the request, saying it is a private company and that the loans were private commercial transactions rather than dealings involving public money.
"There is an active inquiry, by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations," KTDA told the court, adding that the police should be allowed to discharge their duties "without undue interference" from EACC.
Justice Musyoka found that EACC's notices referred only to allegations of corruption and economic crimes linked to the commodity loans.
"I have gone through the documents placed on record by both sides. All of them refer to 'investigating allegations of corruption in the operation of commodity loans' and 'economic crimes and offences'. None of them make reference to bribery," he said.
The judge further held that although the Anti-Bribery Act allows the EACC to investigate bribery involving both public and private entities, no allegation of bribery had been made in this case.
"Any purported investigations, by the EACC, of the applicants, on anything that has nothing to do with bribery, would be ultra vires and in excess of mandate," said the court, allowing KTDA's application to quash the EACC's notices.
