Vodacom-Safaricom Appeal Fast-Tracked as Kenya Refund Risk Lingers

Vodacom Group says Kenya's Court of Appeal has decided to fast-track the substantive appeal against a High Court judgment that nullified the sale of a 15 per cent government stake in Safaricom to Vodafone Kenya, leaving the parties in a tense status quo while billions of dollars hang in the balance.

In a statement to shareholders on Friday, Vodacom said the stay application came before the court in Nairobi on October 13 and that the judges chose not to determine it, instead recording their intention to accelerate the hearing of the appeal itself.

Status quo, for now

The effect of that decision, Vodacom said, is that the prevailing position is maintained pending the appeal: Vodafone Kenya remains the registered holder of the Safaricom shares acquired from the Kenyan government at the end of June, and the purchase consideration paid to the government is preserved.

"Vodacom remains confident in the strategic rationale for the acquisition and will continue to update shareholders on any material developments relating to the appeal process," the company said.

The judgment under appeal

The dispute stems from Vodacom's December 2025 agreement to lift its effective stake in Safaricom to about 55 per cent, buying 15 per cent from the Kenyan government and 5 per cent from Vodafone International Holdings in a transaction valued at roughly $2.1 billion. The government received about Sh204.3 billion for the shares when the deal completed on July 6, plus a further Sh40.168 billion in lieu of future dividends on its retained holding.

On September 15, a three-judge High Court bench declared the divestiture unconstitutional, invalid, null and void, quashed Sessional Paper No. 3 of 2025 along with related approvals and agreements, and ordered the 6,009,814,200 shares restored to government ownership. The judges found that the state had failed to conduct robust public consultations, that the pricing framework for the valuation was arbitrary and that competition implications had not been properly considered.

Petitioners led by Kenyan politician Tony Gachoka had challenged the sale on those grounds. On October 13, the Court of Appeal rejected applications by the government and Vodacom to suspend the judgment pending appeal, before agreeing to fast-track the case.

The money at stake

Treasury officials told the court that the transaction generated foreign-currency inflows of approximately $1.557 billion and argued that reversing it could require repayment or withdrawal of that capital, with knock-on effects for fiscal planning, investor confidence and Kenya's exchange rate position. The government also noted that reversal would involve settled depository entries and cross-border regulatory approvals.

What comes next

A fast-tracked appeal compresses the timetable for a case with implications for Kenya's public finance management law, the role of parliament in approving state share sales and the rights of minority shareholders trading Safaricom stock daily on the Nairobi bourse. For Vodacom, which has already paid, the risk is not loss of the asset so much as a forced unwinding; for Nairobi, it is the credibility of a sale now declared unlawful at first instance.