Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB) officials now risk jail time for violating court orders barring them from interfering with the operations of the gaming platform SportPesa.
This comes after Milestone Games Limited, the company that operates the SportPesa brand in Kenya, moved to the High Court seeking to have the Board’s Chairman Cyrus Maina and board members Peter Mbugi, Peter Kanaiya, Paul Njaga, Sabrina Kanini, Joy Masinde and Daniel Koech jailed for contempt of court.
“The action to belittle and disregard court orders at will cannot be taken lightly and should be arrested at the earliest opportunity,” reads the application by Milestone filed in the High Court.
Milestone further wants the BCLB Chair and board members barred from holding public office as long as they continue disobeying the court orders allowing ‘SportPesa’ to continue operations pending the hearing and determination of the case.
Milestone further states that BCLB bosses have “demonstrated utter disdain for court orders and the judicial process. That the act of the Respondent and its Board Members is of utter utmost contempt of court and demonstrates disrespect to the Honorable Court and the same should not go unpunished despite being served with the orders and penal notices asking them to purge the said act of contempt” in a supporting affidavit.
Recently, some BCLB officials and others from the Ministry of Interior went to SportPesa offices in Nairobi in what seemed like a violation of the court orders that allowed the gaming platform’s continuous operations in the country.