ENS Kenya In Brief

• Published date: 01 April 2024
• Subject Matter: Corporate/Commercial Law, Insurance, Compliance, Corporate and Company Law, Insurance Laws and Products
• Law Firm: ENS
• Author: &nbsp ENSafrica

Below, please find issue 3 of ENS' Kenya in brief, a snapshot of the latest developments in Kenya.

corporate commercial

Welcome to the third issue of ENS' Kenya in brief, focusing on the latest legal and regulatory updates across Kenya's corporate commercial, real estate, and banking and finance industries. Click here to read the second edition.

• Corporate and Commercial

Banking (Penalties) Regulations, 2024

The Central Bank of Kenya has published draft Banking (Penalties) Regulations, 2024 (the 'Draft Regulations') and has invited the public to comment on the Draft Regulations. If passed, the Draft Regulations will revoke the existing Banking (Penalties) Regulations, 1999. The purpose of the Draft Regulations is to promote compliance with and deter a violation of the Act and the Prudential Guidelines by providing a clear framework for assessing a violation and ensuring that an institution or person is penalised for a violation. For more information on this, please read our article here.

Companies (Beneficial Ownership Information) (Amendment) Regulations, 2023

The Attorney General published the Companies (Beneficial Ownership Information) (Amendment) Regulations, 2023 on October 2023. The Regulations provide the instances in which a company can disclose beneficial ownership information, the entities that may seek for beneficial ownership disclosure from the Registrar and the process towards making that request. This is aimed at aligning the disclosure of beneficial ownership information with the Financial Action Task Force ('FATF') standards and to provide for the protection of personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Act, 2019 ('DPA'). For a more detailed analysis on access to beneficial ownership information in Kenya, please read our article here.

• Immigration and Consular fees

The Cabinet Secretary for Interior and National Administration (the 'Cabinet Secretary') published a Gazette Notice intending to revise fees on its various services to take effect from 2024. Notably, the following visa and passport fees have been revised among others.

For more information on this, please see the Gazette Notice here.

Further, starting January 2024, Kenya became a visa-free country, replacing traditional visas with an Electronic Travel Authorization ('ETA'). The Cabinet Secretary published the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration (Amendment) Regulations, 2023 on January 2024 outlining the ETA requirements, including pre-screening and submission of...