Tanzania Excise Duty and East African Trade Rulings
An analysis of the EACJ’s interim order protecting Kenyan safety matches in Tanzania and the evidence businesses need when seeking urgent regional relief.
The levy and the market dispute
The issue was urgent protection, not final legality
What the Court held
The legal test in plain language
Why the order matters to EAC trade
What the advocates did and what the record teaches
How the decision fits earlier cases
Practical lessons for businesses and States
Conclusion
Match Masters Limited manufactures safety matches in Kenya and sells
them in Tanzania. A change made by Tanzania’s Finance Act, 2025 imposed excise
duty of 400 Tanzanian shillings per kilogram on “imported” safety matches while
exempting comparable matches made domestically. The company said the Tanzania
Revenue Authority applied the levy when Kenyan-made matches crossed the border,
even though the goods were traded within the East African Community. Match
Masters argued that the duty raised its prices, interrupted sales and
threatened its ability to remain in a price-sensitive market.
The dispute reached the East African Court of Justice in two linked
proceedings. Reference No. 39 of 2025 is the main case challenging the measure
under the Treaty and the regional trade instruments. Application No. 15 of 2025
asked the Court for temporary relief while that Reference remained undecided.
The distinction between those proceedings is central to understanding the
ruling: the Court was not yet deciding, after a full merits hearing, whether
Tanzania had breached the Treaty. It was deciding whether the situation
required interim protection so that a final decision could still be useful.
The application was filed under a certificate of urgency on 29
August 2025. Match Masters asked the Court to stop collection of the duty on
its Kenyan-origin products during the Reference. The company presented evidence
of zero sales in July 2025, price reductions to absorb the levy, distributor
ultimatums and the risk that buyers would permanently switch to competing
products. It said that in a fast-moving consumer market, a product displaced
from shelves can lose its distribution channels before a final judgment is
delivered.
The First Instance Division was composed of Principal Judge Yohane
Masara, Deputy Principal Judge Richard Wabwire Wejuli, and Justices Richard
Muhumuza, Leonard Gacuko and Kayembe Ignace Rene Kasanda. Match Masters was
represented by Faith Macharia and Alice Kamau. Tanzania was represented by
Vivian Method, Grina Aden and Daniel Nyakihya. The Court’s 30 April 2026 ruling
granted interim injunctive relief against collection of the duty on
Kenyan-manufactured safety matches, pending determination of the substantive
Reference.
The legal issue was whether Match Masters met the test for an
interim injunction under Article 39 of the EAC Treaty and Rule 84(1) of the
EACJ Rules of Procedure, 2019. In ordinary language, the question was whether
the Court needed to pause collection of the disputed duty now to prevent harm
that could make a later judgment ineffective, and whether the applicant had
shown enough at this preliminary stage to justify that pause.
That is not the same question as whether the levy is unlawful. The
main Reference raises issues about free movement of goods, discrimination
between locally made and regional goods, the role of customs legislation and
the limits of national tax measures within the Customs Union and Common Market.
Those questions may require fuller submissions and a final judgment. At the
interim stage the Court had to assess whether the claim was serious enough to
try, whether the threatened injury could adequately be repaired with money
later, and where practical convenience lay while the litigation continued.
This difference in procedural posture matters for businesses and
public officials. An interim order is not a final finding of State liability.
It preserves the position temporarily; it neither erases the legislation
generally nor settles every tax claim that other importers might raise. A
company relying on the case should describe it as authority on regional interim
relief and evidence of threatened market harm, not as a final merits judgment
invalidating a national excise provision.
The Court applied the three-part test restated in Francis Ngaruko v
Attorney General of Burundi, Application No. 3 of 2019, [2022] EACJ 24. The
familiar limbs are a serious triable issue, a risk of irreparable harm not
adequately compensated by damages, and, where doubt remains, a balance of
convenience favouring the applicant. The Court described the test as
preservationist: the purpose is to keep the eventual judgment capable of doing
practical work, not to punish the respondent before the merits are decided.
On the first limb, the Court found that the Reference raised a
serious question for determination. The disputed levy applied to imported
matches, while domestically manufactured matches of the same class were exempt.
The claim also raised the relationship between regional customs treatment and
national classification of goods. The Court did not need to decide that those
arguments would ultimately succeed. It needed to be satisfied that they were
real, legally arguable issues rather than a speculative or frivolous complaint.
On harm, the Court considered more than the fact that the company
had paid or absorbed a calculable tax. The affidavits described the commercial
effects of a sudden cost increase in a market where consumers could move
quickly to substitute brands. The company faced lost sales, damaged distributor
relationships, price pressure and a risk of being displaced while the Reference
was pending. Some past payments could be calculated in money, but the loss of
market access and distribution goodwill could be difficult to reconstruct after
a final decision. That evidence supported the argument that damages would not
fully repair the threatened injury.
The Court also found that the balance of convenience supported
targeted interim relief. The order restrained collection of the specific
400-shilling-per-kilogram duty on the applicant’s Kenyan-made safety matches;
it did not suspend the entire Finance Act or prevent Tanzania from
administering unrelated taxes. The narrow order could be reversed or adjusted
after the merits decision. In comparison, continued collection during the
proceedings risked allowing the market to shift before the legal challenge could
be heard. The Court therefore granted the requested protection while the
substantive Reference continued.
The Court did not find a dissenting opinion in the published ruling.
It delivered a collective order on the interim application. That absence should
not be turned into a claim that no judge had reservations; it simply means the
published reasons contain no separate dissent. The decision’s limits also
remain important: the order is temporary and case-specific, and it does not
make the underlying duty unlawful for all purposes without a merits ruling.
Article 39 of the Treaty authorises the EACJ, in a case before it,
to make interim orders or give directions it considers necessary or desirable.
Rule 84(1) provides the procedural route for an application supported by
affidavit evidence. A business asking for urgent relief therefore needs more
than a certificate saying the matter is urgent. It must put before the Court
the legal issue, the harm that is happening or about to happen, and the reason
a final order could come too late.
The serious-issue limb requires a genuine dispute fit for
adjudication. It is not a mini-trial. In a trade case, the applicant should
identify the Treaty or Protocol obligation, the national act said to conflict
with it, the goods or services affected and the conduct of the public authority
applying the measure. The Court can decide that the issue is arguable without
deciding whether the applicant is right. That is why the Court’s finding of a
triable issue should not be quoted as a final declaration that the Tanzanian
duty breached the Customs Union.
Irreparable harm does not always mean harm that is impossible to
count in money. The useful question is whether money at the end of the case
would realistically restore what was lost. A business can calculate the amount
paid in tax, but may not be able to measure lost shelf space, a distributor’s
decision to change suppliers, a reputation for unreliable supply or the cost of
reopening an export channel. Conversely, a claimant who presents only general
statements that “business will suffer” may fail. The evidence should connect
the challenged measure to real commercial consequences.
The balance of convenience asks which temporary position is less
harmful and more reversible. A court may compare the public authority’s
administrative or revenue interest with the claimant’s evidence of harm. A
narrow order, tied to a particular product and party, may reduce the effect on
public administration while still keeping the commercial dispute alive. The
exercise is not a final weighing of tax policy. It is a temporary choice
designed to avoid an outcome that would make the main case pointless.
These requirements also explain why a court may give parties time to
complete affidavit evidence and argument before granting relief. The case
record shows that the Court dealt with a supplementary affidavit, considered
service and leave under its Rules, admitted it in the interests of justice, and
then allowed Tanzania to answer it. No immediate injunction was made before
that process was complete. Urgency does not displace a fair hearing; it makes
prompt and orderly evidence more important.
The order matters because a national tax can affect regional trade
at the point where a product crosses a border. A Partner State retains
authority to tax, but regional integration places legal limits on measures that
distinguish between goods because of their origin or impose barriers
inconsistent with the Customs Union and Common Market. The case makes visible a
question that can otherwise sound abstract: if a good qualifies for Community
treatment, can it be labelled an “import” for one fiscal purpose and taxed more
heavily than an identical locally produced good?
The substantive answer remains for the Reference. The interim
ruling’s contribution is procedural and evidentiary. It shows that a commercial
operator may ask the EACJ to preserve its ability to trade while a Treaty
challenge is heard, and that market displacement can be relevant even if some
tax amounts are quantifiable. The Court looked at the mechanism of harm and the
likely time required to resolve the main dispute, rather than stopping at the
government’s description of the levy as a financial burden.
For consumers, competition and the regional market, this matters
because the cost of a border measure may travel beyond the importer. The levy
could be absorbed by the manufacturer, passed to distributors, reflected in the
retail price, or lead to product withdrawal. A court assessing interim relief
should know which of those consequences is actually supported by evidence. In
this case, Match Masters put forward an account of price reductions, lost sales
and distributor pressure; the Court treated the account as relevant to the
temporary risk.
The ruling also carries an institutional message. A State’s ability
to legislate for revenue does not remove the need to comply with regional
commitments. At the same time, a temporary injunction should be no wider than
needed to preserve the case. The targeted order recognises both propositions:
protect the applicant’s position on the evidence, but leave the larger tax and
trade questions for final determination.
The court record describes how the application was presented. Faith
Macharia urged the Court to hear the urgent application first and pointed to
immediate and ongoing harm, including absorption of the levy, unsustainable
price reductions and the risk of permanent exclusion from the Tanzanian market.
Tanzania did not concede the application, but was ready to argue it. The
parties then filed a supplementary affidavit and exchanged responses and
written submissions. That is a factual account of the procedure, not a claim
that one advocate’s style alone explains the result.
The most useful advocacy lesson is that a commercial harm allegation
should be proved through particulars. The applicant should identify affected
consignments, the dates and amounts of assessments, sales before and after the
measure, distributor communications, price changes, stock levels, storage costs
and any decision to suspend exports. If the alleged injury is loss of goodwill
or market access, an affidavit should explain why the loss is likely, how
quickly it may occur and why a damages award would not put the business back
into its former position.
The respondent’s argument that the loss was purely financial and
compensable in damages was legally relevant, but the Court had to test it
against the commercial evidence. Government counsel can strengthen that
position by challenging the causal link, showing that the company can quantify
and recover the loss, identifying an alternative remedy, or demonstrating why
the proposed order would disrupt tax administration or the public interest. A
bare description of harm as “financial” may not answer evidence of a network or
market position that cannot readily be rebuilt.
For applicants, the supplementary affidavit episode offers a further
lesson. New evidence can matter, but filing, service and leave rules matter
too. A party should apply promptly for leave where necessary, serve the other
side, explain why the evidence could not reasonably have been included earlier
and avoid forcing the Court to choose between urgency and procedural fairness.
The Court admitted the affidavit after submissions and closed the evidence in
an orderly sequence. That course protected both the applicant’s case and the
respondent’s chance to answer.
Ngaruko v Attorney General of Burundi supplied the trifold test the
Court applied. The framework has roots in earlier EACJ decisions, including
Prof. Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o and Others v Attorney General of Kenya and Others,
Reference No. 1 of 2006, and has been used in commercial and public-interest
cases. British American Tobacco (U) Ltd v Attorney General of Uganda, Reference
No. 7 of 2017, and Kioo Ltd v Attorney General of Kenya, Application No. 9 of
2020, show that an interim question can arise where business operations are
affected by a public measure.
More recent cases provide context without changing what Match
Masters decided. In Centre for Law Economic and Policy of East African
Integration v Attorney General of Kenya and Another, Application No. 7 of 2024,
the First Instance Division considered interim protection in a dispute
connected to the Kenya–European Union trade agreement. In the Somalia EALA
election proceedings, the Court’s appellate panel treated temporary orders as a
means of preserving the appeal while assessing likely harm and public consequences.
Those disputes have different facts and legal issues, but they illustrate the
same procedural principle: interim relief preserves adjudication and does not
decide the merits by itself.
A national comparison is Kenya Revenue Authority v Export Trading
Company Ltd, Petition No. 20 of 2020, [2022] KESC 31. The Supreme Court of
Kenya considered a customs-duty demand raised years after an earlier assessment
and payment, and held that the delayed demand was unfair and inconsistent with
fair administrative action on the record before it. That judgment concerns tax
administration and reliance on completed customs assessments, not the validity
of Tanzania’s new excise charge or the EACJ’s injunction test. Its practical
relevance is narrower: a tax dispute should be analysed through the statutory
route and administrative history, and commercial certainty may matter to the
remedy even where the precise regional trade question differs.
Match Masters extends that line into an urgent trade dispute where
the claimed harm was a business’s possible disappearance from a national market
before the EACJ could decide the Treaty question. Its particular contribution
is the treatment of commercial evidence. A temporary order can be justified not
only by an amount already paid, but by proof that market structure,
distribution relationships and consumer substitution could make later relief
ineffective.
No later final judgment in Reference No. 39 of 2025 is identified in
the official material reviewed for this article as of 15 October 2026. That
procedural status should be checked before publication or later republication.
If the main Reference is subsequently decided, that judgment will determine the
legality of the measure and may clarify or limit how the interim ruling should
be cited. Until then, the precedent should be cited for its interim-relief
holding.
A business facing a new border charge should move quickly but build
the record before asking a court to act. Preserve tax assessments, customs
declarations, origin certificates, product descriptions, correspondence with
distributors, price lists and sales data. Set out the relevant regional
instrument and explain how the goods qualify for the treatment claimed. The
case suggests that a court will need to understand both the legal
classification and the commercial consequences; one cannot substitute for the other.
The applicant should make its requested order narrow. Identify the
particular goods, duty, authority and period covered. Explain why an order
against collection is needed and whether the company can give an undertaking or
meet conditions imposed by the Court. A request to suspend an entire statute
may look disproportionate when the immediate complaint concerns one product and
a specific charge.
A State should issue clear customs guidance when a new tax measure
affects cross-border goods. It should preserve the basis for classification,
identify whether a product is treated as an import or an intra-Community good,
and explain the legal source of the levy. If the measure is consistent with a
regional instrument, a coherent record can help the Court assess that point
without confusing interim urgency with the merits.
For everyday readers, the main distinction is simple: the order gave
Match Masters temporary breathing room, not a final victory on the entire
dispute. The main Reference still has to establish whether the levy violated
East African law. A company can win protection now and later lose on the
merits; it can also fail to obtain interim relief and ultimately prove its
case. Interim decisions are about protecting a fair and meaningful final
hearing.
Match Masters Limited v Attorney General of the United Republic of
Tanzania is a significant regional trade ruling because it connects the EACJ’s
interim jurisdiction to evidence of commercial harm. The Court applied the
established Ngaruko test, found serious issues for trial, accepted that the
threatened market consequences could not be repaired adequately by money alone
and granted a targeted injunction while the substantive Reference proceeded.
The decision should be used for that measured proposition. It does
not finally hold that Tanzania’s excise duty was unlawful or settle the status
of every intra-EAC shipment. Its practical lesson is that urgent regional
relief depends on a clear Treaty case, detailed evidence of what the measure is
doing, and an order carefully limited to what is needed to preserve the
dispute.
Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community (1999),
Articles 6(d), 7(2), 39 and 75. East African Court of Justice Rules of
Procedure, 2019, Rules 54, 84 and 133. Protocol on the Establishment of the
East African Community Customs Union, including the provisions on origin and
free movement of goods. East African Community Customs Management Act, 2004,
including section 2(1). Finance Act, No. 11 of 2025 (United Republic of
Tanzania), section 34(u); Excise (Management and Tariff) Act, Cap. 147. Match
Masters Limited v Attorney General of the United Republic of Tanzania,
Application No. 15 of 2025 (arising from Reference No. 39 of 2025), [2026] EACJ
10 (First Instance Division, 30 April 2026). Francis Ngaruko v Attorney General
of Burundi, Application No. 3 of 2019, [2022] EACJ 24. Prof. Peter Anyang’
Nyong’o and Others v Attorney General of Kenya and Others, Reference No. 1 of
2006. British American Tobacco (U) Ltd v Attorney General of Uganda, Reference
No. 7 of 2017. Kioo Ltd v Attorney General of Kenya, Application No. 9 of 2020.
Centre for Law Economic and Policy of East African Integration v Attorney
General of Kenya and Another, Application No. 7 of 2024. Gerald Kafureeka
Karuhanga v Attorney General, Constitutional Petition No. 39 of 2013, [2014]
UGCC 13. Google Search Central, “Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First
Content” and “Spam Policies for Google Web Search.”
Ronald Serwanga, “Tanzania Excise Duty and East African Trade Rulings,” East Africa Legal Insight (15 October 2026).