Share registry firm, Image Registrars People Performance Partnership, has won a tussle with rival Custody and Registrars Services Limited over a deal to manage the upcoming sale of the government’s stake in Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC).
The Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) rejected an application by Custody and Registrars Services Limited that sought to block the Privatisation Authority from awarding a contract for share registry services in the sale of KPC through an initial public offer (IPO), terming it ‘time-barred’.
“We observe that the request for review was filed on November 11, 2025, which is well beyond the fourteen-day statutory period. Accordingly, we find that the request for review was filed in contravention of Section 167(1) of the Act,” the watchdog said.
“In summary, the request for review is time-barred, having been filed outside the fourteen-day period prescribed under Section 167(1) of the Act. The applicant subjected itself to the evaluation criteria, which ought to have been challenged prior to participating in the tendering process,” the PPARB added in a December 2,2025 decision as it directed the Privatisation Authority to proceed with a tender for shares registrar services for KPC stake sale.
The row between Custody and Registrars Services Limited and the Privatisation Commission broke after the latter invited bids for registrar services for the KPC IPO, which targets to raise Sh100 billion, with the government selling a 65 percent stake.
The Privatisation Authority’s request for proposal for the provision of registrar services for KPC’s IPO in October last year attracted bids from two firms, Custody & Registrars (C & R) Services Ltd, and Image Registrars People Performance Partnership.
The authority, however, disqualified C & R Services for not meeting some technical requirements, triggering disputes at the PPARB.
“The evaluation committee recommended the award of the subject tender to Image Registrars Limited, the Interested Party, at a total contract price of Sh70,345,126, inclusive of all applicable taxes and reimbursables,” PPARB documents state.
C & R Services sued the Privatisation Authority at the board on November 11, 2025, accusing it of setting excessively restrictive and discriminatory technical conditions.
The company, in particular, challenged a requirement that bidders demonstrate experience with at least three large clients each having registers of over 100,000 shareholders, arguing that only a few such registers exist in Kenya, most of which are managed by its competitor in the tender.
“This, in the applicant’s (C & R Services) view, unfairly narrowed competition and failed to promote fairness, equity, transparency, competitiveness, and cost-effectiveness,” the documents stated.
The company argued that Kenya’s securities market has been in a drought over the past decade, thus limiting companies’ exposure to the experience sought in the tender.
The Privatisation Authority, however, defended its process as one that was driven transparently and lawfully, stating that the 10-year experience sought was informed by the nature and scale of the assignment, which involved a national IPO with potentially hundreds of thousands of shareholders.
“The criterion ensured that only firms with substantial, current, and demonstrable operational capacity could participate, thereby protecting the State from risk and promoting constitutional values of transparency, accountability, competitiveness, and cost-effectiveness,” the PPARB documents state.
At the end of the dispute, the PPARB sided with Image Registrars People Performance Partnership’s argument that C & R Services filed the suit outside legal timelines and struck out the matter.
The company argued that since C & R Services was disputing the tender selection criteria, it would have filed the suit after it became aware of the requirements rather than participating in the process, only to dispute it later.
The PPARB did not rule on the core arguments by C & R Services in the suit, instead striking the matter off for being filed late.
“In conclusion, having considered the facts and the submissions of the parties, we find that the Request for Review was filed outside the statutory fourteen-day period and is therefore time-barred. An applicant cannot participate in the game and later challenge the rules that governed it; to do so is to act belatedly and outside the proper timeframe,” the PPARB said.
“The Applicant, having subjected itself to the evaluation criteria, ought to have raised any grievances prior to participating in the tender process. Accordingly, we find that the Board lacks jurisdiction to entertain the Request for Review, and as such, we lay down our tools,” it added.
