Court Awards Former Little Cab GM Over KSh 98M for Unfair Dismissal and Promised Equity

In a landmark ruling, the Employment and Labour Relations Court in Kenya has awarded Ronald Otieno Mahondo, the first General Manager of Little Cab, a total of KSh 98 million for unfair dismissal and a breached promise of company equity, the Kenyan Wall Street reports.

The judgment, delivered on October 23, 2025, by Justice Mathews Nduma, concluded a long-standing dispute between Mahondo and his former employer, Craft Silicon, the parent company of the ride-hailing service. The court found that Craft Silicon CEO, Kamal Budhabhatti, had unlawfully terminated Mahondo in 2017, specifically to prevent him from claiming his 1% stake in the company.

The total award comprises USD 750,000 (approximately KSh 97 million), representing the value of the 1% equity, and an additional KSh 1.02 million in compensation for the unlawful termination.

The case’s turning point was the admission of a secret audio recording, captured by Mahondo, in which Budhabhatti acknowledged the 1% share agreement.

In a move that proved fatal to the defense, Mahondo submitted a secretly recorded conversation he had with Mr. Budhabhatti. In the audio, the CEO is heard acknowledging the promise to grant the 1% stake to Mahondo.

Craft Silicon’s defense argued against the admissibility of the recording, but Justice Nduma found it to be “credible, consistent, and verifiable” under Kenya’s Evidence Act.

The judge determined that Mahondo, sensing an unfair disciplinary process was being mounted against him, had recorded several meetings. This audio evidence became the smoking gun that directly corroborated Mahondo’s central claim, which the company had sought to deny.

Justice Nduma’s ruling explicitly linked the dismissal to the company’s attempt to avoid its contractual obligation. “The claimant was victimised in an effort to conceal the fact that he had been awarded 1% shareholding,” the judge stated in his ruling.

Ronald Mahondo was headhunted to join the Little Cab in April 2016, taking on the role of General Manager. He was tasked with the formidable challenge of building the ride-hailing venture from the ground up to compete with established global giants like Uber.

His starting salary was KSh 240,000, which was later increased to KSh 340,000. But the centrepiece of his compensation package, according to Mahondo’s suit, was the promise of a 1% equity stake in the company. This incentive, common in the tech startup world, was meant to reward him for his foundational role.

Mahondo claimed he was also allegedly promised an additional 1% stake if he successfully grew the company. According to his testimony, he and his team were highly successful, growing the firm’s book value to over USD 300 million within his first year.

However, the court ultimately based its valuation on a more conservative figure, calculating the 1% stake to be worth USD 750,000 based on a total company valuation of USD 75 million.

Relations between Mahondo and senior management reportedly began to sour when he insisted on receiving a written, counter-signed copy of his employment contract that detailed the share award. He claimed he had signed his copy but never received the official one from the company.

The court found that Mahondo’s persistence on this point led directly to his ousting. In what Justice Nduma described as a “litany of adverse letters to the Claimant in a short space of one month,” the company began building a disciplinary case against him.

This campaign culminated in his summary dismissal in May 2017.

In its defense, Craft Silicon and Mr. Budhabhatti painted a different picture. They contended that Mahondo was “casual, careless and unsystematic in his management” of suppliers and “did not get along with colleagues.” They claimed he had been found guilty of gross misconduct, but the company had decided to terminate him ‘normally’ and had paid him a severance package of KSh 633,737.

The court rejected these arguments, finding the timing and nature of the disciplinary actions to be a clear pretext for his removal. The judgment also noted that the defense had not directly contradicted evidence of “persistent abuse, harassment, threats and promise of termination of employment” from another company director, who is also Budhabhatti’s wife.

The KSh 98 million judgment is one of the largest of its kind in Kenya’s labor court history.

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