Pevans East Africa Limited and Milestone Games Limited are locked in bitter battle over the ownership of ‘SportPesa’ brand name.
Pevans East Africa Limited closed shop in July 2019, following revocation of its licence by the Betting Control and Licencing Board (BCLB) arising from huge tax arrears dispute with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).
In October this year, Kenyan were elated to hear SportPesa was making a comeback to the Kenyan market. This time the under a new vehicle, Milestone Games Limited.
The bone of contention is that Pevans East Africa Limited still lays claims on ‘SportPesa’ brand name. This explains why SportPesa’s much publicized ‘comeback’ was short-lived, as the betting regulator suspended operational accounts, citing a pending domain dispute case in court.
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Milestone Games Limited director Wilson Ngatia Karungaru and operations manager Chauro Matoke have since been arrested and will face fraud charges.
The two were arrested for using ‘SportPesa’ brand name while according to Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB) ‘SportPesa’ is a brand of Pevans East Africa Limited.
“On Saturday October 31, 2020, we received a report from BCLB chairman Cyrus Maina and director of the board Peter Kiria Mbugi that there was illegal betting where by a SportPesa which is a brand of Pevan East Africa Limited, whose license had been revoked and one of the directors may have given it’s brands sportpesa paybill numbers, short codes, ussd code and domain sites to Milestone Games Limited,” Nairobi Regional CID boss Ben Nyakwaka spoke on the arrest of Wilson Ngatia and Chauro Matoke.
The Nairobi Regional CID boss further said that their investigation established that Milestone Games Limited had notified BCLB that they had taken over SportPesa brand from Pevan East Africa Limited, while in essence the latter had stopped that move.
“Before they were given approval by the board to use SportPesa pay bill numbers, already they had started betting, the board stopped Safaricom from betting using the firm’s paybill numbers, short codes and ussd codes,” said Nairobi CID boss.
The Nairobi CID boss said that Wilson Ngatia and Chauro Matoke will be charged with fraud as per section 14 (1) (d) of the betting, lotteries and gaming act cap 131 laws of Kenya.
Related: Sportpesa Operations In Kenya Suspended
