Nairobi, April 19 -- The High Court has rejected compensation claims against a State-owned Chinese firm, Sinohydro Construction Limited which accused of damaging underground telecommunications cables that had been installed along a section of the Nairobi-Thika highway.

The court allowed Sinohydro's appeal and set aside a lower court ruling that had found it liable for destroying fiber cables belonging to Frontier Optical Networks Limited.

The dispute stemmed from an April 2011 incident near the Roysambu KPLC area, where Sinohydro, then undertaking road works, dug trenches that cut through fiber optic cables laid parallel to major roads in Nairobi.

Frontier Optical Networks sued, accusing the contractor of acting "negligently and malici...