Kaplan & Stratton Advocates

Litigation and Dispute Resolution

Partner

Esther was admitted as an advocate of the High Court of Kenya in 1998 and is a registered arbitrator with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. She has been a partner at Kaplan & Stratton since 2003 specialising in dispute resolution. She has represented cases at all levels of court and also acts as arbitrator in various commercial arbitrations.

Esther handles various matters touching on corporate commercial law including intellectual property, construction, administrative and public law, private and public international law claims, product liability, insolvencies and receiverships, and security realisation. She is also an expert in employment law.

Some of the notable matters she has handled include: successfully defended an international financier (OPIC) in a protracted security realization claim in which Jopa Villas defaulted in its loan repayments and filed a claim seeking to halt the realization of the security against OPIC and its receivers which resulted in the payment of USD 5,814,341 to OPIC; successfully represented Dyncorp International in an appeal to the High Court against an international arbitral award of USD1,542,164; successfully represented Eastern Produce Kenya Limited in a class action suit in which more than 100 unionisable employees of the company, who participated in a massive illegal strike, had sued the company seeking compensatory damages for wrongful termination; successfully defended a Government parastatal  in a complex arbitration claim for approximately USD 4,600,000 in respect of a claim by contractors for the construction of a housing estate; representing Unilever PLC & Unilever Kenya in a trademark infringement case in relation to its well known mark “LUX”; and jointly represented the Kenya Tea Growers Association in the Court of Appeal in respect of an appeal against a decision by the Employment Court awarding a 30% wage increase. The Court of Appeal delivered a landmark decision reducing the wage increase to 16% and awarded a productivity increase for tea pluckers to 1170 kilograms per month. The Court of Appeal award for productivity is a game changer in the tea industry which has been battling high labour costs impacting on the viability of tea production in the country.

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Law Society of Kenya International Bar Association Fellow – The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Kenya Branch) Institute of Certified Public Secretaries of Kenya.

Kenya School of Law – Bar Qualifying Examinations University of Nairobi Bachelor of Laws (LLB) (Upper Second Class Honours)