The High Court has rejected an application to suspend contempt of court proceedings against officials of Zakhem International Construction Limited for failing to pay a Sh460 million debt.
The company had argued that it was facing parallel legal proceedings from Azicon Kenya Limited, arising from the same dispute.
According to the Lebanese firm, maintaining the contempt of court case concurrently with the liquidation petition constitutes multiplicity of proceedings aimed at recovering the same debt.
This amounts to gross abuse of the the court proceedings, the firm’s director Ibrahim Zakhem said.
The court, however, noted that the application was made without seeking permission to file the matter during recess as required by vacation rules.
“In any event, the application for stay of proceedings arising out of liquidation ought to be made in the insolvency court and not the present court,” said the court.
The court directed that the matter be mentioned on February 24, 2026, for directions.
Azicon Kenya said in the application that there was evidence that Zakhem International was paid by Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) but had refused to settle its debts even after being served with a court order.
“The open contempt of court decree herein warrants the arrest and committing the directors of the Defendant to civil jail in the event that they continue to disregard the decree in contempt of court,” Azicon said in the application.
Zakhen International Construction argued that it was extremely prejudicial to be subjected to the double jeopardy of simultaneous recovery actions in respect of the same debt.
Azicon was among the companies subcontracted by Zakhem International Construction for the replacement of the 450-kilometre Nairobi-Mombasa pipeline in 2018.
Azicon Kenya Ltd said it was subcontracted by Zakhem International for electrical, instrumentation, and telecommunication installation works.
The construction firm said that by commencing the liquidation petition, Azicon had elected the insolvency proceedings as its preferred mechanism for recovering the money.
“The simultaneous prosecution of the instant execution proceedings alongside the pending insolvency petition gives rise to a multiplicity of proceedings pursuing the same objective or recovery of the same decretal debt from the judgment debtor,” Ibrahim Zakhem, a director of the company.
The Kenyan firm said the contract was for $10,137,424 (about Sh1.3 billion) and Zakhem only paid about 840 million, leaving a balance of $3,560,857 (about Sh537.3 million).
The Kenyan firm said in the insolvency proceedings that Zakhem International was busy scheming and deliberately avoiding paying the debt by incorporating new companies to hide its money and assets.
