Devani puts up fight to stop transfer of Triton Oil assets

Corporate News

Fugitive businessman Yagnesh Devani. PHOTO | FILE 

By Galgallo Fayo

In Summary

• Yagnesh Devani’s Triton Gas Stations and Triton Service Stations want the High Court to restrain buyers of 11 properties registered in the business names from assuming their possession.

KCB’s dispute with fugitive businessman Yagnesh Devani has taken a new twist after he petitioned the court to stop transfer of properties owned by his collapsed oil importing firm, Triton.

 

Mr Devani’s Triton Gas Stations and Triton Service Stations want the High Court to restrain buyers of 11 properties registered in the business names from assuming their possession.

Triton applied last week to have earlier court orders reviewed and the pending transfers halted. The orders allowed those who had bought the properties to complete the transactions.

The petitioners argue that their search at the Lands registry has revealed that only five properties out of about 14 assets that KCB has claimed to have sold have been transferred.

Triton has distanced itself from an agreement in 2009 in which its assets were pledged as security for the loan taken by Mr Devani, a former director of the oil trading company.

Triton was placed under receivership in 2008 after it was established that the company had withdrawn its stock of fuel from the Kenya Pipeline Company’s storage tanks without informing its financiers – who included KCB and PTA banks – after which Mr Devani fled the country leaving behind a Sh7.6 billion scam.

KCB had earlier told the High Court that it has completed the sale of all of Mr Devani’s assets used to secure a Sh2.1 billion loan.

READ: KCB sells off Devani’s assets in Sh2bn Triton row

The court, however, on July 17 gave an order restraining sale of the assets, prompting KCB to return to court seeking a clarification on how the transfer and registration of already sold properties could be handled.

Justice Eric Ogola on July 24 clarified that his temporary order issued on July 17 stopping the sale did not apply to 14 properties that KCB has already sold.

But on Monday last week, Triton returned to court arguing that its search has revealed that 12 of the properties that lender claimed it has auctioned were yet to change hands.

It asked the High Court to review its order and stop the transfer to the buyers, arguing that the sale is only valid once the transfer at the Lands registry has been effected.

The properties that KCB says it has sold include four located in Nakuru, four in Naivasha, two in Mombasa, one in Kisumu and another one in Dagoretti.