NAIROBI (Reuters) - A Kenyan court on Thursday temporarily stopped Stanbic Bank Kenya from merging with CFC Bank until a case brought against Stanbic by former employees is heard.

Stanbic Bank has already received all necessary regulatory approval to proceed with plans to buy a 60 percent stake in CFC Bank Group, whose assets were valued at 43.3 billion shillings as of December 2007.

"The bank is hereby restrained by a temporary order of injunction from proceeding with the proposed merger with CFC Bank pending the determination of this suit," Judge Roseline Nambuye said in her ruling.

Fifteen former Stanbic employees are suing the bank for 1.1 billion shillings. They said in suit papers that the bank failed to pay them their accrued pension in full when they retired.

Stanbic is owned by South Africa's Standard Bank. It announced the merger deal in mid-2007. The new entity will be renamed CFC/Stanbic Holdings and will become Kenya's fourth largest bank.