Insight type: Legal Alert

The Supreme Court of Kenya recently delivered a landmark judgment in Dina Management Limited v County Government of Mombasa & 5 others (Petition No. 8 (E010) of 2021), which has significant implications for property investors and stakeholders in Kenya.

The Minister of Communication and Information Technology recently issued a notice (the Notice) on the commencement of the Personal Data Protection Act of 2022 (the Act). Pursuant to the Notice, the commencement date for the Act is 1 May 2023.

The Finance Bill, 2023 (the Bill) was laid before Parliament on 4 May 2023. The Bill makes the most far-reaching changes that have been witnessed in tax legislation in the recent past. The tax measures introduced are aimed at expanding the taxes collected by the Government of Kenya, against the backdrop of fiscal pressure in the currently prevailing economic circumstances. The Bill proposes to make amendments to a raft of tax-related laws in Kenya, including the Income Tax Act (Chapter 470, Laws of Kenya), the Value Added Tax Act, 2013, the Tax Procedures Act, 2015, the Miscellaneous Fees and Levies Act, 2016 and the Excise Duty Act, 2015 amongst others.

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) continues to exercise its enforcement mandate by taking action against data handlers in breach of the Data Protection Act, 2019 (DPA). Two companies, Whitepath Limited and Regus Kenya, are the latest entities to be issued with penalty notices on 11 April 2023 for breaching certain provisions of the DPA. The ODPC communicated that it had issued penalty notices imposing fines of KES 5 million (approx. USD 37,053) on each of these companies. This is the highest financial penalty under the DPA.

Private Placement Life Insurance (PPLI) is a life insurance policy which can hold a legal and beneficial interest in a range of assets such as financial assets, operating businesses and digital assets while allowing the policyholder (or its representatives) to retain a certain degree of influence and operational control of the underlying assets.

 

The American Chamber of Commerce Business Summit was held on 29 and 30 March 2023 in Nairobi. The objective of the Business Summit was to provide a strategic platform for strengthening two-way trade and investment between the US and East Africa though unleashing the power of private enterprises in driving long-term economic ties, enhancing trade, and promoting investment.

The United Arab Emirates (“UAE”) did not previously have any formal statutory rules to determine the tax residency of an individual. However, the UAE Ministry of Finance and the UAE Federal Tax Authority (FTA) required an individual to have resided in the UAE for a minimum of one hundred eighty-three days (183) in a 12 calendar month period in order to be eligible for obtaining a tax residency certificate.

In a ruling that has understandably sent shock waves across the banking sector in Kenya, the High Court has declared that a lender cannot pursue a guarantor for any outstanding amounts on a loan facility if having been unsuccessful in selling the charged property after exercising its statutory right to do so under section 97 of the Land Act, it purchases the property itself.

In order to develop and enhance Zambia’s economic relationship with the United Arab Emirates (the UAE), Zambia and the UAE have negotiated and concluded a double taxation agreement (DTA) which was published in Zambia’s Government Gazette on Wednesday, 11 January 2023. The DTA is therefore in force in Zambia and applies to persons that are residents of Zambia and/ or the UAE (collectively, the “Contracting States”). We accordingly highlight the salient provisions of the DTA from a Zambian law perspective.

Affirming existing jurisprudence, the High Court of Kenya ruled that complaints under the Data Protection Act, 2019 (DPA) ought to be first handled by the Data Commissioner. In a recent alert, we detailed how the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) had begun exercising its wide-ranging powers to enforce the DPA provisions. Long before this, data subjects had made attempts to seek compensation from courts in relation to perceived violations of their rights under the DPA. In several decisions, Kenyan courts have generally affirmed that data subjects ought to exhaust the complaints mechanisms available to them under the DPA before approaching the court. The most recent of these decisions is the High Court at Naivasha’s ruling in Mwangi & another v Naivasha County Hotel t/a Sawela Lodges (Petition E003 of 2021) (the Petition).