Twiga Foods and a cloud services provider have been given a two-month period by High Court judge Josephine Mong’are to attempt resolving a Sh39 million dispute outside of court. The agri-tech firm and Incentro Africa have until November 30 to negotiate and reach an agreement on the settlement. If no resolution is reached by that date, the court will provide directions on the hearing of the liquidation application filed by Incentro Africa.

“Parties are hereby encouraged to negotiate and come up with a settlement plan,” the judge said.

“That Incentro Africa is acting unreasonably in pursuing liquidation of the company instead of pursuing other remedies as set out in the agreement between the parties,” the firm said in the petition.

The judge also extended an interim order that prevents the liquidation of Twiga Foods, a company owned by billionaire Peter Njonjo. Twiga Foods contested a $261,878 debt claim, arguing it was demanded in bad faith to force payment of a non-existent debt. The firm stated that the publication of the liquidation process could severely harm the company’s reputation by falsely portraying it as insolvent.

“For its suppliers, the threatened liquidation proceedings would extinguish the credit terms the company has, putting the company in a negative working capital position,” Daniel Ngugi, the head of legal and administration at Twiga Foods, said.

Twiga Foods operates as a business-to-business marketplace platform, directly sourcing produce from farmers and delivering it to urban retailers through a mobile-based cashless supply platform. To streamline its operations, the company engaged a cloud services provider and utilized Incentro’s Google Cloud platform reseller account.