A court gavel/FILE
A Magistrates Court sitting in Nairobi has issued a temporary order freezing and restricting the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) revenue collection account held at a local bank.
The order was granted by Milimani Magistrate Rawlings Musiega following an application filed by the Performing and Audio-visual Rights Society of Kenya (PAVRISK).
The magistrate further restricted the use of MCSK's M-Pesa paybill number until the matter is heard inter-parties.
PAVRISK told the court that earlier orders had been issued in December last year freezing the MCSK revenue collection account and Safaricom M-Pesa paybill number.
The court also temporarily stopped MCSK from collecting royalties from users of PRAVISK. But MCSK, being aggrieved, filed an application seeking to have those orders varied in a bid to allow it to operate its accounts.
The same, according to the court documents, was allowed, but on condition that Sh7 million be deposited into a joint account in the names of PAVRISK and MCSK within three days.
But PAVRISK claims that "in spite of the knowledge of the Court Orders, MCSK has allegedly been issuing Joint KAMP-PRISK-MCSK invoices and licenses, collecting the full tariff amounts into its MCSK Revenue Collection Account held at a bank in Westlands."
The matter will be mentioned on March 19 for further directions before another magistrate after Rawlings indicated he is proceeding on leave.
