A Central Bank of Kenya senior manager has told the court that former CMA chairman Nicholas Alexander Nesbit had ceased being a director of BNB Kenya Limited more than a year before the transaction that triggered a foreign exchange investigation.
CBK senior manager Sylvester Cheruiyot told the court that a transaction between BNB and Bidco dated May 23, 2023 was among transactions flagged by the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit (BFIU) for review.
Cheruiyot testified that CBK was asked to establish whether the transactions amounted to foreign exchange business, whether BNB and BNX Partners were licensed and whether the companies had applied for forex bureau licences. He said CBK established that the two companies were not listed among authorised forex dealers and therefore did not hold licences to conduct foreign exchange business.
The witness was also shown documents from the Business Registration Service indicating that Nesbit ceased being a director of BNB on March 11, 2022. He confirmed that the date preceded the May 2023 transaction by more than a year and that the company’s sole director at the time was listed as Gulen Boitura. Asked whether the investigation had established any personal involvement by Nesbit in foreign exchange business, Cheruiyot said CBK had not conducted the investigation itself and had relied on information contained in the BFIU memo.
The witness further agreed that, based on the documents presented in court, any liability arising from BNB’s lack of a forex licence would fall on the person who was its director at the relevant time.
The court also heard that BNB and BNX had been named in the BFIU memo, although the witness confirmed that Nesbitt was not a party to the specific agreement placed before the court. The case involves allegations surrounding a Sh102 million transaction involving Former Capitala Markets Authority Nick Nesbitt and Bidco CEO Vimal Shah.
