The SportPesa ownership battle has taken a new twist after it emerged that a fake court order was used to lock out one of the owners Paul Ndung’u from participating in the ownership dispute for the multi-billion sports betting company.
The fake order was revealed when the Court of Appeal reversed an earlier ruling that it had made blocking Ndung’u who is a billionaire investor, from taking part in the cases over control of SportPesa.
According to a report that appeared in a local business newspaper, the new developments have now placed a prominent lawyer under investigation over the forgery of a court order. The top lawyer is reportedly being investigated by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in a forgery case that is listed under OB23/08/09/2025.
Apparently, the fake order was designed to make it look as though Ndung’u had been blocked by the court from filing or taking part in cases on behalf of SportPesa, including on a case in which he had contested the usage of the SportPesa trademark by a company known as Milestone Games.
According to the report, a High Court order had restrained Ndung’u from dealing in Pevans East Africa which owned the SportPesa brand. This restraining order was however for a period of just two weeks which ended on January 24, 2023.
However, the fake order included phrases that made it look as if the court had issued an injunction blocking Ndung’u and any of his agents from ever dealing in Pevans East Africa.
Strikingly, this fake order was presented and filed before the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal judges then went on to rely on it in blocking Ndung’u from taking part in a suit that was challenging a consent that had allegedly allowed the use of the SportPesa trademark by Milestone Games.
The report further stated that this consent had allegedly been signed by Milestone Games and the Betting Control and Licensing Board. However, five of seven directors of the board disowned the agreement and rejected the claims that they had approved the consent.
Milestone Games started operating a betting business in October 2020 using the SportPesa brand. This company was created by some shareholders of Pevans who included Ronald Karauri and Robert Macharia.
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Under Pevans, Karauri and Macharia had held a three percent stake. However, under Milestone, they had stakes of 71 percent and 14 percent respectively, meaning that they both controlled 85 percent of Milestone. Ndung’u was excluded from the new Milestones company together with former Pevans shareholder Asenath Wachera.
When the fights over SportPesa came to the limelight in late 2020, there were allegations that some Sh29.1 billion was transferred from the company’s accounts to overseas accounts without the approval of some owners.
At the time, reports indicated that Ndung’u owned a 17 percent stake in Pevans and 2.8 percent stake in SportPesa Global Holding Limited (SGHL). Foreign owners led by Bulgarians owned 80 percent of SGHL and 47 percent in Pevans. Karauri owned a six percent stake in Pevans East Africa while Wachera owned 21 percent stake in Pevans.
Peter Kihanya Muiruri owed a one percent stake. American Gene Grand owned a 21 percent piece, Bulgarians Valentina Nikolaeva Mineva three percent and Ivan Stoyanov Kalpakchiev two percent.
