• In 2013, the Law Society of Kenya found as legitimate a complaint lodged by Leonard Kamweti that lawyer Ahmednassir Abdullahi accessed the bank's confidential documents.
• A few months later, the bank sent Kamweti on early retirement, a move that started a war that has yet to end more than five years later.
Image: JACK OWUOR
A case in which the National Bank of Kenya has sued its former secretary for leaking confidential information will now be heard by the High Court.
This is after the Court of Appeal judges ruled that the issues raised against Leonard Kamweti, the former employee, were not arising from their employment contract.
Kamweti, the respondent and an advocate of High Court, was employed by the National Bank as its company secretary charged with taking, maintaining and safeguarding minutes of meetings held by the bank's board of directors.
Following the restructuring of the National Bank, Kamweti was sent on early retirement that took effect on July 31, 2013. He felt aggrieved by the decision and filed a case in the Employment and Labour Relations Court — a case he won in 2016.
But National Bank, through lawyer Rawbeen Dar, filed another case in High Court and sought damages for breach of confidence, among other orders.
Dar submitted to the court that in early August 2013, they learnt that Kamweti had maliciously and without its authority made an unauthorised and unlawful recording of a meeting held by its board of directors on July 8, 2013.
Further, she said the respondent disclosed the confidential information to third parties, including the director of bank supervision of the Central Bank of Kenya, the Capital Markets Authority and the Law Society of Kenya through letters dated August 2, 2013, and August 9, 2013, as well an MP3 recording.
“As far as we are concerned, the respondent’s actions were actuated by malice because firstly, he had not been authorised to disclose the information and secondly, he had distorted the said information,” Dar argued.
"The respondent’s aim was to disrupt the bank’s business operations and damage its reputation.”
However, before the issue could be determined, Kamweti filed a statement of defence on May 19, 2014, raising an objection to the High Court’s jurisdiction to entertain the suit.
The former secretary said the case is anchored in his contract of employment and that the proper forum was the Employment and Labour Relations Court. The bank opposed this objection arguing that the High Court was properly seized of the matter.
Ultimately, the High Court, on October 24, 2014, ruled that the Labour and Employment Court ought to listen to the case.
National Bank, on the contrary, felt that the judge, in determining the question of jurisdiction, should have focused on the nature of the information that was the subject of the dispute, rather than the relationship between the parties.
In an appeal, Dar asserted that the Employment Act provides that if the contract of service is secondary to the main dispute, then such a matter does not fall within the jurisdiction of the ELRC.
"It followed, therefore, that since the issue in contention is the breach of confidentiality and trust on the part of the respondent, the suit was properly before the High Court," she said.
Judges Wanjiru Karanja, Fatuma Sichale and Jamila Mohamed allowed the appeal and set aside the ruling of the High Court.
“In the circumstances of this case, we, therefore, find that the plaintiff’s cause of action is founded on the tort of breach of confidence. Consequently, we find that the appellant’s suit was rightly before the High Court,” they ruled.
“The ruling is substituted, therefore, with an order dismissing the respondent’s objection to the High Court’s jurisdiction”.
(Edited by F'Orieny)