Kenya’s High Court has declined to lift the suspension of Tata Chemicals’ Kenyan subsidiary – Tata Chemicals Magadi Ltd’s mining operations.
Tata Chemicals Magadi operates Africa’s largest soda ash production facility at Lake Magadi, Kajiado County, Kenya.
The court held that the suspension order issued by Mining Cabinet Secretary Hassan Joho on July 28, 2026, had already taken effect and was being carried out by the time the company approached the court on July 30. The judge cited that the parties had reached a consensus at a meeting on July 29 that the suspension would stay in force even as Tata Chemicals took steps towards compliance, in a ruling dated August 7.
The suspension stemmed from a dispute over alleged unpaid royalties and compliance necessities spanning licensing, export reporting, community agreements, local employment and environmental rules. Tata Chemicals challenged the suspension through judicial review, claiming it was issued without proper notice or adequate time to reply, and maintained that outstanding royalties had since been settled.
As per reports in Kenyan media, the government opposed Tata Chemicals’ request for a temporary order. In an affidavit, Mr. Thomas Mutwiwa said that the company had acquired numerous notices, the most latest dated May 14, 2026, over arrears in royalty payments. The authorities also told the court that Tata Chemicals did not hold a current mining licence, as its application stayed under review. Kenya Gazette notices from October 2025 and February 2026 recorded two separate licence applications by the company covering around 63.5 sq. Km each in Kajiado County for soda ash mining.
Tata Chemicals disputed the government’s account of the July 29 meeting, saying it had not resolved questions over the suspension’s legality and that minutes of the discussion, which centred on royalty calculations, should have been shared with the company.
The court said it was now not needed at this level to rule on the merits of the wider dispute, however only to weigh the interests of both aspects. It rejected Tata Chemicals’ argument that persisting the suspension would cause significant losses, saying the company had not showed the scale of those losses, and referred to that the soda ash at the centre of the case was into not a perishable commodity. The case returns to court on October 6, 2026.
The dispute runs alongside a separate case at Kenya’s Supreme Court among the company and the Kajiado County Government over land rates and royalties, in which the county has demanded Sh17.45 billion (~$134.7-mn) in alleged arrears for 2013 to 2018.
