Meta appeals Labour Court ruling in exploitation case
By Nancy.Gitonga, February 21, 2023
Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O), the owner of Facebook, yesterday filed a petition in the Court of Appeal to challenge the Labour court’s decision to have it sued in Kenya over allegations of exploitation and poor working conditions of its content moderators at their Nairobi hub
The new twist comes after the parties appeared before judge Jacob Gakeri of the Employment and Labour Relations court yesterday for the hearing of an application by the petitioner Daniel Motaung’, a former Facebook content moderator in the Nairobi hub seeking to be allowed to serve Meta with the lawsuit papers outside Kenya. Through Fred Ojiambo, Meta urged the court to suspend the hearing of the application of service until the appellant court determines their appeal on whether the Kenya courts have jurisdiction to hear the suit.
Lawyer Ojiambo claims Meta has appealed the decision of the Labour court after being aggrieved with the entire finding it can be sued in Kenya. Ojiambo claims that the petitioner was not an employee of Meta.
“This is a pure employment-related matter. We (Meta) are not the employer and we going to show that. The petitioner has to prove that he was employed by our clients,” Ojiambo stated.
He insisted the court has no jurisdiction at all to hear and determine the suit against the social media company. Meta had argued that it ought not to have been sued in Kenya since the petitioner had been contracted by a third party, Samasource Kenya EPZ, which had been outsourced for content moderation services on Facebook.
The international social media firm stated that the suit was incompetent, bad in law and unsustainable and the labour court should await the Court the appeal decision.
However, Justice Gakeri declined to hear an application by Meta for leave to appeal his decision at the appellant court rendered early this month that declared the American social media giant’s company can be sued in the country saying the court has not to grant such orders.
He however directed all parties to file their submissions on the application by Motaung’ application on service before March 14.