KECOBO Suspends KAMP Licence for 90 Days Over Ksh5.5 Million Royalty Misappropriation, Orders PAVRISK to Collect on Interim Basis

KECOBO has suspended KAMP's operating licence for 90 days, ordered the refund of Ksh5.5 million in misappropriated royalty funds, and prohibited KAMP from issuing licences, collecting royalties, or negotiating tariffs for the duration of the suspension. The board found that KAMP diverted royalty funds to activities unrelated to distribution, including court cases, failed to meet the 70:30 mandatory distribution threshold, issued licences below gazetted tariffs, and maintained a royalty distribution system lacking verifiable usage data. PAVRISK has been directed to collect royalties on KAMP's behalf and hold funds in a separate trust account. The action follows KECOBO's February 2026 refusal to renew MCSK's licence over Ksh56 million in unaccounted royalties. With two of Kenya's major CMOs now under active regulatory sanction simultaneously, the enforcement pattern signals a systemic review of CMO governance rather than isolated incidents. For music users holding KAMP-issued licences, artists expecting royalty distributions, and legal counsel advising on copyright licensing arrangements, this enforcement action creates immediate practical questions about licence validity, royalty flow, and the integrity of the CMO framework

KAMP's suspension is the second major CMO enforcement action KECOBO has taken within five months. In February 2026, KECOBO declined to renew MCSK's licence following failure to account for Ksh56 million in artist royalties and non-submission of audited accounts for five years. KAMP's suspension now follows a similar pattern: financial misappropriation, failure to meet mandatory distribution requirements, and governance deficiencies in royalty accounting. The concurrent incapacitation of two major CMOs is not a coincidence that can be managed quietly. It raises a structural question about whether the CMO model as currently operating in Kenya is fit for purpose, and whether KECOBO's licensing and oversight framework has been adequate to prevent the conduct it is now penalising.

The Ksh5.5 million finding against KAMP is smaller in headline terms than the Ksh56 million MCSK figure, but the nature of the conduct is comparably serious. KECOBO's notice identifies diversion of royalty funds to court cases as one of the unrelated activities to which the funds were applied, which means artists' royalties were used to fund the organisation's own litigation costs, a specific and egregious form of misappropriation that goes beyond administrative failure into deliberate misuse of funds held in a fiduciary capacity for rights holders.

CMOs in Kenya operate under the Copyright Act, No. 12 of 2001, as amended, which establishes the framework for collective management of copyright and related rights. KECOBO is the statutory regulator responsible for licensing, supervising, and where necessary, sanctioning CMOs. Licences granted to CMOs authorise them to collect royalties on behalf of rights holders and distribute those proceeds according to approved distribution plans and schedules. The 70:30 distribution threshold referenced in KECOBO's notice is a mandatory regulatory requirement specifying that at least 70 percent of royalty collections must be distributed to rights holders, with the remaining 30 percent available for CMO administrative costs. Failure to meet this threshold is a direct breach of licensing conditions and a deprivation of the rights holders the CMO exists to serve.

Gazetted tariffs are the rates KECOBO sets for royalty collection across different categories of music use, including broadcast, public performance, and digital streaming. Issuing licences below those tariffs, as KAMP is found to have done, results in lower royalty collections than rights holders are entitled to receive, effectively subsidising music users at the expense of rights holders without regulatory approval. PAVRISK, directed to collect on KAMP's behalf during the suspension, is itself a KECOBO-licensed CMO covering performing and audio-visual rights. The direction to hold collected funds in a separate trust account is a standard protective mechanism in regulatory interventions of this nature, designed to prevent commingling with PAVRISK's own funds and to preserve the traceability of amounts collected on KAMP's behalf for eventual distribution when the suspension is resolved.

The simultaneous regulatory incapacitation of KAMP and MCSK creates a material gap in the CMO framework at a moment when KECOBO has just commenced the rollout of a digital royalty collection system through the eCitizen platform. The digital system, launched with CMO service agreements including KAMP, was intended to improve royalty collection efficiency and transparency. Having one of the signing CMOs under a 90-day licence suspension from the day the system was being rolled out is a governance contradiction that KECOBO will need to manage explicitly, both in terms of how KAMP's portion of the digital system is handled and what this says about the due diligence process applied before CMOs were onboarded to the eCitizen platform.

For music users, the immediate practical question is the validity of licences issued by KAMP before the suspension. KECOBO's notice prohibits KAMP from issuing new licences and collecting royalties during the suspension period, but it does not address the status of existing licences held by venues, broadcasters, digital platforms, and other music users. A music user holding a KAMP-issued licence that was issued in compliance with the gazetted tariffs, and that has not yet expired, has a reasonable argument that the licence remains valid for its term regardless of the licensor's regulatory status, but the position is not legally unambiguous and should be confirmed with legal counsel rather than assumed. Music users whose KAMP licences are due for renewal during the 90-day suspension period face a more immediate problem, since KAMP cannot issue renewals while suspended, and the absence of a licence renewal could leave them exposed to copyright infringement claims from rights holders.

The governance failure pattern across both KAMP and MCSK points to a structural weakness in KECOBO's supervisory model. Both enforcement actions cite deficiencies that should have been detectable through routine regulatory oversight: failure to submit audited accounts, inadequate distribution records, and below-tariff licensing are not governance failures that arise overnight. They develop over time and should trigger regulatory intervention earlier than they apparently did in both cases. KECOBO's requirement that KAMP file quarterly licensing operations reports and finance reports suggests the information flow existed, which means the question is whether KECOBO's analysis of that information was timely and effective. The reinstatement condition, that KAMP must fully address identified governance, financial, and compliance failures before licence renewal is considered, is the correct enforcement posture, but it will be tested by whether KECOBO applies the same rigour to the reinstatement assessment as it now claims to have applied in the enforcement review.

KAMP's suspension, coming five months after MCSK's licence refusal, is an enforcement pattern rather than an isolated incident. KECOBO is now managing the simultaneous regulatory incapacitation of two major CMOs while attempting to roll out a digital royalty system that those same CMOs were meant to anchor. The governance failures at both organisations were systemic and developed over time, which means the question for KECOBO is not just whether it has acted correctly now, but whether its supervisory framework is calibrated to catch these failures earlier. The reinstatement bar for KAMP is appropriately high. Whether KECOBO applies the same rigour to assessing reinstatement as it claims to have applied to identifying the breach will determine whether this enforcement action produces lasting change or simply a temporary suspension followed by a return to prior conduct.