Diageo urges Kenyan chief justice to speed up hearings of bids to stop $2.3 billion Asahi deal (updated)
UPDATE 1-Diageo urges Kenyan chief justice to speed up hearings of bids to stop $2.3 billion Asahi deal Adds Diageo and EABL comments in bullets 7 and 8
NAIROBI, June 24 (Reuters) - Diageo's East African Breweries EABL.NR, DGE.L unit has written to Kenya's chief justice urging her to speed up the hearings of cases seeking to block a $2.3 billion stake sale to Japan's Asahi Holdings 2502.T, a letter seen by Reuters showed.
In the fourth in a series of challenges to London-listed Diageo's plan announced in December to sell its 65% stake in EABL to the Japanese brewer, a minority shareholder last week secured a court order halting the deal.
Here are some details:
The suit questions whether minority stakeholders will be treated fairly, among other grievances.
EABL lawyers wrote on Tuesday to Chief Justice Martha Koome, calling her attention to a "proliferation of parallel proceedings" and the risk of conflicting orders in relation to the deal.
The letter raised concerns about "apparent forum shopping".
It said the case at the High Court in Machakos, an hour's drive from Nairobi, represented a strategy to secure relief from another High Court that had been declined by the High Court in Nairobi.
The deal was governed by a time-sensitive contractual and regulatory timetable spread across more than one country, it said.
There was no immediate response from Koome's office.
Diageo said it "remains confident in the merits of the transaction and will take all necessary steps to protect its position, while continuing to respect the court process".
EABL said it was unfortunate that a deal that will benefit the Kenyan economy has "been repeatedly targeted through coordinated litigation tactics designed to disrupt the transaction for private commercial purposes".
The parties in the deal have said they expect it to be completed in the second half of this year.
Of the three previous suits against the deal, two were dismissed and the outcome of the third is unclear.
(Reporting by Duncan Miriri in Nairobi and Emma Rumney in London; Editing by Jan Harvey and Barbara Lewis)
((duncan.miriri@thomsonreuters.com))