Court to jointly hear suits on beer bottles : The Standard

A court in Nairobi has ordered consolidation of two cases against East African Breweries Limited (EABL) regarding ownership of beer bottles. Commercial Court Judge Grace Nzioka said a suit filed by distributors and another one involving EABL rival Keroche Breweries should be heard together. While agreeing with KBL lawyers Kamau Karori and Diana Ogula, she found another case pitting KBL against its rival Keroche Breweries, hence, she ordered the distributor’s case be consolidated with the other. Lawyers for EABL led by Kamau Karori had urged the court to either strike out the distributors’ case or order that it be consolidated or put the file on hold until the other case is heard and determined.

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The case was file by Alexander Mugo, Jacob Wamiti, Phasity Wanjiru, Samuel Kamau, Catherine Wanjiru and Herman Mwaura. Justice Nzioka said the distributors had a similar claim to Keroche. “The issues raised herein by the applicants are similar to those raised in HCCC No 88 of 2016. I hereby direct that the file be consolidated for the cases to be heard together,” she ruled.

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The case before the court was filed by distributors of Keroche’s products complaining of harassment by the police for distributing beer in bottles engraved in EABL initials. At the heart of the fight is who owns the brown and green bottles that package beer.

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The distributors’ lawyer Irungu Kang’ata said the only solution to the fight was each company to label the beer but leave the bottle for universal use. Universal bottles are colloquially known in the market as ‘Euro Bottles’ and are allegedly used all over the world. The court heard beer is sold in either green or brown bottles to protect the content from harmful rays. EABL’s lawyers claimed Keroche was using its distributors to fight back while there was a separate case where it had consented to an order that it would not use EABL bottles to package its beer. Mr Kamau argued that it would be unfair to have other companies use bottles that EABL had manufactured. He said each party should buy and even engrave their bottles in a bid to prevent pilferage.

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“The bottle is made for you. If it is not engraved, then someone else will package beer without paying for it. The allegation that my client is collecting all bottles is not true,” he said.

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EABLKeroche BreweriesBeer bottle