The High Court in Nairobi has ruled that security firm Wells Fargo Limited is not liable to pay Quick Mart Limited any amount more than KSh 80 million following the loss of nearly KSh 95 million during cash transit, citing a binding contractual cap.
- •In a judgment delivered on March 23, 2026, Justice F. Mugambi found that although the retailer lost Sh94,918,750 in November 2023 while the money was under the custody of the security firm, the agreement between the two parties clearly limited liability to KSh80 million.
- •The dispute arose from a valuables-in-transit contract signed in February 2021, under which Wells Fargo was tasked with collecting and delivering cash from Quick Mart outlets to Family Bank.
- •Justice Mugambi sided with the security firm, emphasizing that courts cannot rewrite contracts freely entered into by parties.
The judge pointed out that Quick Mart had been advised within the contract to obtain insurance cover for any excess risk beyond the liability cap but failed to do so.
“The loss, insofar as it exceeded the contractual cap, is properly attributable to the plaintiff’s failure to mitigate its risk,” the court held.
Quick Mart had told the court the loss forced it to take a KSh 95 million loan to plug a cash flow gap, and sought to recover the full amount plus interest, arguing that each collection from its outlets constituted a separate transaction deserving individual compensation.
But Wells Fargo maintained that its liability was capped under the contract and said it had already paid KSh80 million, the agreed maximum. It also argued that the retailer failed to secure insurance cover to protect against such losses.
“The liability… shall not in any circumstances exceed” KSh 80 million, the judge noted, adding that the wording of the agreement made it clear that the cap applied to the entire consignment and not individual collections.
The court found that the cash collected from multiple outlets had been consolidated into a single consignment and was lost within one continuous period of responsibility, making the KSh 80 million limit applicable to the whole sum.
