The plaintiff alleged that Safaricom adopted his original idea after he presented it to company executives in 2021.
The feature allows parents to monitor and control teenagers’ spending through linked mobile wallet details.
Nairobi High Court ruled in favour of the innovators, finding that Safaricom implemented the idea as presented.
By Ochola Victor
Safaricom is set to compensate Ksh 1,400,067,000 billion to innovators Peter Nthei and Beluga limited company over a copyright dispute of a teenage account following a ruling that was passed by the Nairobi high court.
Safaricom was sued of duplicating an original idea of Peter Nthei in designing an M-Teen mobile wallet product (M-Pesa Go) to monitor minor’s transactions through the aid of parent using a teens details after he shared the details with Safaricom executives in 2021 and later turned down. The feature enables parents to monitor and control teens spending.
The court, through Judge Justice Josephine Mong’are ruled on May 8, 2026 that additional royalty of 0.5 percent since the idea adoption and put into use should be considered and 0.5 per cent of subsequent revenue as long as the product is functional.
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“I would agree that the youth-account idea is a common invention but Safaricom adopted the idea after a presentation featuring exact operational models as illustrated by the plaintiffs,” she ruled.
The court further reject Safaricom’s petition of discontinuing featuring the service as it will disrupt millions of user.
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