The High Court of Kenya has blocked India’s Adani Group from leasing Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO) in a deal that would have enabled the gateway to be expanded using private capital.

The temporary suspension relates to a 30-year lease at the country’s biggest gateway serving the capital Nairobi and run by Kenya Airports Authority (KAA). NBO is mainland Africa’s seventh busiest hub, serving 8.8 million passengers in FY2022/23.

The potential deal with Adani has raised public concerns over recent months about the loss of a strategic national asset which contributes 5.5% of Kenya’s GDP. Airport workers, via their union representatives, have also opposed the proposed takeover with threats of strike action. It seems that the courts have taken such concerns onboard—for now at least.

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK), the country's top bar association, and the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) made a joint petition on September 9 telling the High Court that Kenya could independently raise the US$1.85 billion required to upgrade Nairobi’s aging airport.

The petitioners’ main objection to the Adani deal was that it was happening without enough transparency while the KAA, in July, noted that the Adani deal was merely "a proposal subject to technical, financial, and legal reviews"—in other words, it was far from a done deal. According to KHRC, Adani had pledged almost US$2 billion to “upgrade and expand” the airport, but the commission believes the Adani proposal is “unaffordable, threatened job losses, disproportionately exposes the public to fiscal risk, and offered no value for money to the taxpayer.”

KHRC and the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) wrote to the KAA in July and August seeking details of the contract. KHRC stated: “Despite rising public demand for transparency, the government continued to withhold information about the deal.”