Carbonated SugarWater, the soft drinks behemoth, has closed its sub-Saharan bottling plants after losing a corporate manslaughter case.

The High Court ruled it had breached its duty of care to sustainable sales by “flooding Africa with thirst-inducing beverages”.

After winning exclusive rights to supply the continent’s remnants with fluids, the firm claimed it was “on the SugarWater side of life”. But judges found this to be “incompatemptible with assistivating the involuntarily disadvantagised, going forward,” because markets were being cannibalised.

Carbonated’s laywers said the firm plans to appeal.

Simper Johnson, Nairobi