DFCU Bank has secured a procedural victory in an ongoing case before the English High Court, as part of the legal proceedings initiated by Crane Bank Limited (CBL) and others over its alleged fraudulent sale by the Bank of Uganda. Critically, the Court dismissed an attempt by Crane Bank Limited to exclude reports prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd (PwC) from the proceedings. Crane Bank’s lawyers failed in their argument that (i) PwC, which was instructed by Bank of Uganda to undertake a forensic audit of Crane Bank, was not part of the global and well-known firm PwC and (ii) that the PwC reports would be inadmissible as a matter of law to prove any primary fact. Justice Paul Stanley noted that the PwC reports spanning over 150 pages and covering a broad period, (including events in the early 2000s), point to findings which, if accurate, can fairly be described as serious, indicating mismanagement of Crane Bank in several respects including: creation of a deliberately false impression on its balance sheet, disguising the identity of shareholders, improper diversion of bank funds; and sweetheart deals with insiders. The judge noted that, if accurate, these findings point to management practices inconsistent with what “any sensible regulator would wish to see operating a strategically important bank.†In a further development, the Court ordered Sudhir Ruparelia to surrender his mobile phone for expert forensic analysis to determine whether it contains potentially relevant documents. His wife, Sheena Ruparelia, was also directed to disclose materials from her personal email account. DFCU has consistently maintained that the claims against it are without merit and continues to assert that it acted lawfully throughout the process of the acquisition of Crane Bank Limited. Crane Bank’s suit against DFCU Bank and the Bank of Uganda is a complex and long-running legal dispute stemming from the controversial sale of Crane Bank’s assets in 2017. In October 2016, the Bank of Uganda took control of Crane Bank over claims of being undercapitalized and having poor corporate governance. It was subsequently placed under statutory management, and in January 2017, its assets and certain liabilities were sold to DFCU Bank for approximately UGX200 billion. However, Crane Bank and tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia, its majority shareholder, allege that senior Ugandan government officials, including those from the BoU, orchestrated a corrupt scheme to take control of the bank for personal benefit. In February 2022, the Supreme Court of Uganda ruled that Crane Bank, while under receivership, could not sue its former owner, Sudhir Ruparelia. This effectively meant the BoU’s attempts to recover funds from Ruparelia through Crane Bank in receivership were dismissed on a technicality. Then in October 2023, the Uganda High Court ordered the cancellation of the transfer of 48 properties to DFCU Bank and for DFCU to grant Meera Investment vacant possession. More recently, the focus has shifted to legal proceedings in England.
