In a much needed public win since it became embroiled in scandals in 2022, Kenya has dropped its charges of financial impropriety against Flutterwave. The court case began in July 2022, when Flutterwave was charged to court on suspicions of card fraud and money laundering. As a result, the court froze 6.2 billion Shillings held by the fintech giant in various Kenyan banks. Kenya’s Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) said at the time.
At the time, the ARA said: “The 1st Respondent’s (Flutterwave) bank accounts received billions in a suspected scheme of money laundering and the same deposited in different bank accounts in an attempt to conceal or disguise the nature, source, location, disposition or movement of the said funds.”
At the time, Flutterwave denied wrongdoing and said that all the transactions in question were verifiable. A part of its statement at the time read, “By facilitating payments for the biggest organizations in the world and everyday businesses, we process significantly large volumes of money and contribute to growing the economy in Kenya, and the rest of Africa.”
Bloomberg first reported today that a Kenyan high court has now dropped the charges against Flutterwave. The decision to drop those charges comes two months after similar charges filed against Korapay, another Nigerian fintech startup, were also dropped. Three other Nigerian startups also had charges dropped against them.
The end of this legal wrangle is especially beneficial to Flutterwave, after its image took a beating in 2022. Allegations of workplace misconduct and that some employees were cheated out of stock options were refuted by the company, but the barrage of bad press took some shine off a much loved startup. Its aspirations to go public may very well be pushed back by the public markets. But there’s no doubt that it needs some good news as it moves forward.
