By Musis Lwanga
The supreme court of the United Kingdom has dismissed attempts by Uganda’s Dfcu-bank and its shareholders and ordered them to stand trial in the UK court for their role in the fraudulent acquisition of the assets of Crane Bank Limited from Bank of Uganda.
Three UK supreme court Justices, Lord Lloyd Jones, Lord Leggatt and Lord Burrows ruled that Dfcu-bank bank’s appeal “Does not raise an arguable point of law”, allowing the main case in which crane bank shareholders accuse Dfcu-bank and its management, directors and shareholders of colluding with the central bank to corruptly seize, underprice and fraudulently sell off crane bank.
This comes after DFCU-bank and its former directors had sought to avoid accountability in this case by presenting a jurisdiction challenge, arguing that the corrupt sale of the assets of Crane Bank Limited to DFCU-bank by Bank of Uganda was an act of state by the Government of Uganda, and that UK Courts had no jurisdiction to hear the case.
This argument was rejected by the UK Court of Appeal, and they were ordered to file their defences and proceed to trial in the UK High Court.They then sought leave of the UK Court of Appeal to appeal this decision to the UK Supreme Court, which leave was denied and then filed another application seeking the leave to appeal from the UK Supreme Court.
This application has also been refused as the UK Supreme Court found no merit in their application.
In this case, UK Supreme Court ordered
Dfcu-bank it’s shareholders to pay costs and must now file their defences within 21 days.
Background case;
Dfcu Limited, Dfcu-bank Limited, Jimmy Mugerwa, Juma Kisaame, William Ssekabembe, CDC Group, Norfinance AS, Rabo Partnership B.V, Arise B.V, Stephen Caley, Michael Alan Turner, Albert Jonkergouw, Willem Cramer, Ola Rinnan and Deepak Malik have all been sued by crane bank under Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia in the UK on a case seeking the recovery of over US$220 Million, before assessment of additional damages, which experts believe will raise the amount to be recovered to over US$500M.
