The High Court has ordered the Assets Recovery Agency to release funds belonging to Nigerian fintech giant Flutterwave Payment Technology, which have been frozen since 2022.
Anti-Corruption High Court Judge Nixon Sifuna allowed the applications filed by Flutterwave and Hupez Solutions seeking the release of the funds after ARA withdrew a money laundering suit against them.
"In consequence therefore, I without hesitation hereby allow both Applications (by the companies) to the extent that the preservation/freeze orders hitherto subsisting are hereby discharged and the said funds be released to the Respondents forthwith, unless they are otherwise the subject of any other or different preservation/freeze orders, other than the ones issued by this Court on August 19, 2022," Justice Sifuna ruled.
Flutterwave and Hupez had been charged alongside Adguru Technologies Limited (respondents).
Following the laundering accusations in 2020, ARA on August 19, 2022, obtained court preservation orders to freeze certain of the respondents' respective bank accounts.
More than Sh6 billion was frozen. The monies spread in over 60 bank accounts and Safaricom paybill numbers were in the name of the three firms.
After months of litigations, ARA, however, sought to and was allowed to withdraw the suit on November 9, 2023.
Despite the withdrawal, the agency opposed to release of the frozen money.
While delivering the ruling, Justice Sifuna noted that this is despite the agency voluntarily withdrawing the forfeiture suit from the companies and consequently the frozen funds from forfeiture.
The Judge condemned the action, saying it was "not only ironical, but also pretentious, mischievous and insincere", he added, " Such a litigational facade or decoy is inappropriate, an abuse of the court process and an attempt at squandering the scarce judicial time."
He stated that when a party withdraws a suit, it is presumed to know the logical and foreseeable consequences of such withdrawal.
In regards to this knowledge, the party should not later on "start shedding crocodile tears and foolhardily or even naively invite the court to embark on wiping such tears".
Justice Sifuna added that the shedding of such tears and their wiping ought to be the sole enterprise of such a party and not subject to a court sitting.
In the ruling delivered on January 10, he dismissed ARA's opposition to unfreeze the bank accounts and release the money in question.