Kenya court clears Safaricom stake sale to Vodacom
A Kenyan court has green-lit the sale of a Safaricom stake to Vodacom, marking a landmark cross-border telecom ownership transaction in one of Africa's most closely watched mobile markets. The judicial clearance removes a significant legal obstacle to the deal's completion.
Safaricom: the data sovereignty question didn't go away — it just lost in court
The Court of Appeal cleared the sale, but the judges who blocked it weren't being frivolous. Three High Court justices paused a Sh204 billion deal specifically because questions about data sovereignty and public participation were unresolved — not because the law was unclear.
Those questions are still unresolved. The court lifted the block; it didn't answer them.
For any market watching foreign ownership deepen inside a dominant mobile-money network, that gap matters. Safaricom runs M-Pesa, which is effectively Kenya's financial plumbing. Who owns a slice of it, and on what terms, is a legitimate public question — not a technicality to clear on appeal.
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- Kenya: Court Clears Safaricom Stake Sale to Vodacom · allafrica.com · T3