Published on 26/07/2025
The High Court in London has issued a critical ruling in the landmark legal battle between Crane Bank Limited (CBL) and DFCU Bank, limiting DFCU’s ability to rely on controversial forensic reports in its defence against serious allegations of participating in the unlawful takeover of one of Uganda’s once-leading banks.
In a decision handed down by Mr. Justice Paul Stanley KC, the court refused DFCU permission to plead the contents of two PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) reports as factual evidence, citing concerns about fairness, clarity, and the risk of prejudicing a fair trial. The reports had been commissioned by the Bank of Uganda (BoU) after it placed Crane Bank under statutory management in October 2016 and later into receivership.
Crane Bank and its shareholders allege that the move by the BoU was fraudulent, politically motivated, and designed to strip the bank of its assets under the false guise of financial instability. The claimants maintain that Crane Bank was solvent and profitable at the time, citing audited accounts by KPMG, and argue that the bank was sold to DFCU in early 2017 through a sham bidding process at a gross undervalue.
The court’s ruling centred on DFCU’s attempt to incorporate wholesale findings from the PWC reports—documents which CBL has consistently challenged as unreliable, biased, and lacking transparency. While the judge acknowledged that DFCU could reference the existence of the reports to contextualize the BoU’s decisions, he was unequivocal in rejecting their use as a basis for asserting truth of their conclusions.
“To the extent that DFCU wishes to plead, as factual allegations that it positively intends to prove, any of PWC’s specific conclusions, paragraph 24.4 attempts to do so in a way that is inconsistent with effective preparation for a fair trial,” the judge ruled.
He further observed that incorporating “swathes” of PWC’s heavily disputed content—some of which pre-dates the trial’s disclosure timeline—would obstruct fair proceedings and burden the claimants with rebutting vague, voluminous, and unpleaded accusations.
Victory For Fair Process, Says Crane Bank Legal Team
Legal counsel for Crane Bank, led by Hannah Brown KC, successfully argued that DFCU’s proposed amendments amounted to an improper attempt to sneak in untested allegations through the back door, rather than making them subject to proper scrutiny and trial procedure.
The judgment, while procedural in nature, is being viewed as a significant validation of Crane Bank’s insistence on due process and evidential integrity, especially in a case that has drawn international attention over its implications for regulatory abuse, corruption, and foreign commercial acquisitions in Africa.
The case, set for a 12-week trial in 2026, will examine whether the Bank of Uganda acted in bad faith in seizing and selling Crane Bank, and whether DFCU knowingly participated in a corrupt scheme. The claimants argue that the entire process was engineered to eliminate Uganda’s most innovative indigenous bank, and that the sale enriched a select few at the expense of shareholders, depositors, and the wider financial system.
DFCU’s efforts to base its defence on the controversial PWC reports—whose legality and methodology under Ugandan law remain in question—has now been sharply curtailed by the UK court.
Justice Stanley made clear that while DFCU may argue that a reasonable regulator could have acted based on the reports, it cannot adopt the reports’ findings as if they were independently proven facts.
“Such ambiguity,” he warned, “would undermine clarity and obstruct the orderly resolution of the case.”
For Crane Bank and its shareholders, the ruling marks a step forward in their quest to expose what they call a politically sanctioned expropriation of a thriving business. The Bank of Uganda’s narrative—that Crane Bank was a systemic risk—is increasingly being tested under the rigour of cross-border legal scrutiny.
This case, being heard in the Commercial Court of England and Wales, continues to shed light on how regulatory actions in emerging markets can be subject to international legal standards—and how corporate rights violations, even when state-backed, may still be challenged in courtrooms abroad.
As preparations for trial continue, the spotlight remains firmly on the actions of DFCU, the Bank of Uganda, and the role of multinational audit firms in facilitating decisions that had far-reaching consequences for Uganda’s banking landscape.
