JUDGMENT
Law JA The appellants are, respectively, a corporation incorporated in the United States of America, to which I shall refer as “Chase”, and one of its senior officers, to whom I shall refer as “Oliver”. The respondents are a firm of contractors who carry on business in Kenya. I shall refer to them as “Laxmanbhai”.
Laxmanbhai sued the appellants in the High Court of Kenya for Shs 1,843,007 being the balance certified as due and payable to them under a building contract whereby Laxmanbhai built two lodges for a company known as African Ponderosa Ltd (“the company”) on land belonging to the company. The company was incorporated in Kenya in 1969 with a capital of Shs 700,000. It was formed for the purpose of building and operating the two lodges. Chase and the Standard Bank Finance and Development Corporation (“Devco”) agreed to lend money to the company to finance this project. They entered into an investment loan agreement with the company in December 1970, under which Chase lent…