The High Court handed a Kenyan innovator a Ksh 1.4 billion win against Safaricom. The Court of Appeal may have other ideas.
In May 2026, the Milimani High Court delivered what looked like a watershed moment for Kenyan innovators. Peter Nthei Muoki and his company Beluga Ltd walked away with a Ksh 1.4 billion judgment against Safaricom, plus 0.5% of M-Pesa’s gross annual revenue for as long as Safaricom runs its “Manage Child Account” product. The judge even declined to shut the product down — citing disruption to millions of users — which tells you just how embedded in Kenyan life this thing already is.
“A landmark ruling — but one with serious legal vulnerabilities that Safaricom’s appeal will exploit.”
The backstory is one many entrepreneurs will recognise. In early 2021, Muoki pitched Safaricom on his “M-Teen Account” an M-Pesa sub-wallet for teenagers and young adults, designed to give parents visibility and control over their children’s spending. Safaricom told him it was too complicated to build. Eighteen months later, Safaricom launched something called “Manage Child Account.” Muoki sued.
The court found his concept which he had documented and registered with the Kenya Copyright Board , qualified as a literary work protected under copyright law. Noble ruling. Important precedent. And yet, as a practitioner, I have a nagging feeling the Court of Appeal will find significant room to manoeuvre.
Here is the legal elephant in the room.
Copyright law, in Kenya and globally has one foundational rule: it protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. You can copyright a song, a book, a screenplay. You cannot copyright the concept of “a love song” or “a thriller set in Nairobi.” The same applies here. A documented concept for a teen mobile wallet is an idea. The specific lines of code, the UI flow, the technical architecture , those are expression. The ruling does not clearly establish which of those was copied, and that distinction is everything on appeal.
What the Court of Appeal will scrutinise
- Ideas vs. expression. Copyright protects documented expression, not the concept itself. Safaricom’s appeal will argue the court protected an idea — and it has a point.
- Originality. Parental controls on financial products exist in multiple markets globally. Did Muoki’s documented concept meet the originality threshold? The ruling doesn’t fully interrogate this.
- Substantial similarity. Infringement requires showing the defendant’s actual product substantially reproduced the protected work. The analysis of what exactly was copied, code, specs, flows is thin in the reported reasoning.
- What the court got right. Access was established Muoki pitched to Safaricom directly. And dismissing the “verbal CBK instruction” defence was commercially astute. No serious company builds regulated financial products on an undocumented verbal nudge.
None of this means Muoki was wrong to sue. It means the legal path to keeping that Ksh 1.4 billion is steeper than the headline suggests.
Now for the bigger conversation.
Muoki’s case is not unique. Across Kenya, entrepreneurs pitch ideas to large corporates every day in boardrooms, over email, at demo days with no NDA, no registered IP, and no paper trail beyond goodwill. The power imbalance is stark. Corporates have legal teams. Founders have enthusiasm. When those pitches resurface later in a press release under a different name, most innovators have no recourse at all.
PROTECT YOURSELF BEFORE THE PITCH
Register your IP before walking into any corporate meeting. A registered copyright creates a timestamped, enforceable record that changes everything if things go wrong. Visit kira.co.ke to get started.
The Muoki case, win or lose on appeal, has done something valuable: it put IP theft on Kenya’s corporate agenda in a way that a dozen policy papers never did. Safaricom is appealing. The outcome will shape how Kenyan courts handle the line between inspiration and infringement for years to come.
Full Case reference:
Muoki & another v Safaricom PLC; Huawei Technologies (Kenya) Company Ltd (Interested Party) (Civil Suit E407 of 2022) [2023] KEHC 22039 (KLR) (Commercial and Tax) (4 September 2023)
(Link to Ruling)](https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/judgment/kehc/2023/22039/eng@2023-09-04)__