The Dr Chris Kirubi majority-owned Longhorn Publishers has been ordered to pay two authors Sh35 million for books the government bought in bulk from the company, which then refused to remit royalties to two authors.
The writers, Dr Stephen Mburu and Dr Geoffrey Chemwa, had sued Longhorn, where Dr Kirubi was a shareholder.
And arbitrators, Mr Kyalo Mbobu and Dr Muthomi Thiankolu, have found that Centum unfairly excluded royalties totalling Sh35 million from the teachers’ guide books written by the two authors.
Centum Investments became the first company to gain a controlling stake in another Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm, when it took a 60 per cent stake of Longhorn Publishers in 2016.
Majority shareholder
Dr Kirubi, who passed on last month, was the majority shareholder in Centum, which made him the biggest financial beneficiary of Longhorn’s success.
The royalties in dispute arose from copies of the guide books worth Sh350 million that Longhorn sold to the government, through the Education ministry, in 2018 and 2019.
The ministry first ordered copies of books worth Sh195.2 million on September 12, 2018 before making another order worth Sh185.4 million on April 30, 2019.
Dr Mburu and Dr Chemwa authored four books in line with contracts they had with Longhorn.
Under the contracts, the two authors were each to receive five per cent of the price of the books. If Longhorn sold the books at a discount of 40 per cent or more, then the authors would instead each receive five per cent of the sales made.
Lawyer John Njomo, representing the two authors, argued that the government bought the books at a 27 per cent discount, which meant that his clients were entitled to 10 per cent of the publishing price and not the money received by Longhorn for copies sold.Mr Njomo added that his clients were entitled to Sh35 million in royalties from the books sold to government in 2018 and 2019.The royalties were required to be paid no later than May 15, every year. And for 16 years, Longhorn submitted a statement of accounts to the two authors without fail, and honoured all royalty payments on time. Statement of accounts Longhorn sent a statement of accounts to the authors on February 4, 2020 detailing sales of the books made between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019.The document excluded sales made to government between 2018 and 2019, and the authors confronted Longhorn over the discrepancies.Longhorn had also completely […]