Ecobank Kenya has won a court order directing the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) to pay it Sh549 million from proceeds of a roughly Sh10 billion arbitral award in favour of a Spanish firm. The order was reported on November 12, 2026. The case sits alongside a Spanish liquidation petition over the same award.
Ecobank’s claim rests on an earlier arrangement. The bank says it holds a secured interest in €3.8 million, about Sh567 million, from a 2019 consent order linked to the arbitration. Earlier in the dispute, the High Court allowed Ecobank to join the proceedings as an interested party, but declined to order direct payment to the bank. The court ruled that the claim had to be pursued in a separate case where the consent order was issued.
The dispute began in 2016, when Ketraco terminated two contracts for the construction of a power line and a substation, citing poor performance and failure to mobilise works. The contractor, Instalaciones Inabensa, took the matter to arbitration. The tribunal found Ketraco in breach and in 2019 awarded the contractor €37.37 million, about Sh5.4 billion, plus interest, legal fees and costs.
The claim has since grown. A November 2025 High Court ruling put it at €62.67 million, about Sh10 billion, plus Sh195.31 million as at February 2024, excluding further interest. Ketraco challenged the award through the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, and lost at each stage.
The rights under the award were later transferred to the Spanish firm CA Infraestructuras T & I SLU, after Instalaciones Inabensa entered insolvency proceedings. That firm filed a liquidation petition against Ketraco on May 8, 2024, to enforce the award.
Ketraco sought to make the Spanish company deposit Sh185 million as security for costs, arguing that it was a foreign firm with no known assets in Kenya. The High Court rejected the request, saying a foreign company is not in itself grounds for such security and that Ketraco had not shown the claimant could not pay costs.
The court has also tested the state agency’s finances. It blocked the immediate seizure of 17 of Ketraco’s bank accounts and ordered the utility to provide a Sh1 billion bank guarantee instead. Ketraco has appealed to the Court of Appeal, arguing that the freeze had crippled its operations.
The public purse may ultimately bear the cost. The National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee has directed the Energy Principal Secretary and the National Treasury to secure funds to pay the contractor, a step that reflects how the dispute has moved from the courts into public finance.
Ecobank is also involved in a separate Sh2.3 billion row with a collapsed Spanish contractor, Isolux Ingenieria, over a transmission line linking the Lake Turkana wind power project to the national grid. In that case, the bank obtained orders stopping Ketraco from paying the contractor outside an account held at Ecobank.
The next signals will be the Court of Appeal’s ruling on the account freeze, the separate Ecobank claim, and any payment arrangements agreed with Treasury. Those steps will determine how much of the Sh10 billion award is paid and who receives it.
