Bank of Uganda (BoU) battle with East Africa’s heavily loaded Tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia must be a lesson to every one that ‘only bite what you can swallow’ and think about the consequences of swallowing what you can’t chew!
The above tip is derived from the situation BoU is dipped in after unbowegable money magnet Sudhir tasked it to cough UGX200 billion as compensation of his wasted precious time, his dubiously sold Crane Bank to Dfcu, and all other legal costs of the battle that began in 2017.
To switch your mind on board, Supreme Court last week BoU to directly pay costs at all Court levels and ordered that the Bank be reverted to Sudhir and the stakeholders, a ruling that effectively sealed the 5yr old case that kicked off the day BoU mafias sold the tycoon’s bank.
Immediately after winning the battle, Sudhir told journalists in Kampala thus, “I told you from the beginning that Bank of Uganda stole my bank. I thank the judiciary for not shielding such dubious games,” he adds, “They have to pay costs of suit right from the Commercial Bank to the Supreme Court.”
Revealing how this battle has affected him, Sudhir noted, “I made heavy loses because of Bank of Uganda, my reputation as a business man…I have never failed any business, BoU killed my carrier when they said I had failed my own business-Crane Bank. That has a bearing especially with your business partners.”
On the question of why such a heavy bill of UGX200Billion, Sudhir answered,”They disturbed me mentally and physically, how can that be equated in terms of money?
To you our first time reader, all these stem from June 30, 2017, when Crane Bank Limited (in Receivership) took Mr. Sudhir Ruparelia and his Meera Investments Ltd. to court for causing financial loss amounting to UGX 397 billion to Crane Bank in fraudulent transactions and land title transfers.
Crane Bank (in receivership) in its Civil Suit No. 493 of 2017 sought High Court to compel Mr. Ruparelia to pay back the US$80,000,000, US$9,270,172.00, US $ 3,560,000.00, US$990,000.00 and UGX 52,083,995.00 as compensation for breach of fiduciary duty.
While Justice Wangutusi dismissed the UGX397 billion case against Mr. Ruperalia on a technicality, alleging that Crane Bank (in Receivership) lost its powers to “sue” and to “be sued”, thus rendering its suit a nullity, Crane Bank (in Receivership) maintaining that receivership is a management situation, and hence no legal change as to the capacity of a company to sue and be sued which ruling BoU disagreed with and instead kept on appealing till the last court losing at all levels to the tycoon.
Crane Bank started operations on 21 August 1995 “with a vision of being the largest privately owned Ugandan Bank.”
In September 2012, Crane Bank acquired the assets and some of the liabilities of the National Bank of Commerce, a small, indigenous, financial services provider in Uganda that had lost its banking license.
On 30 January 2014, Crane Bank established Crane Bank Rwanda Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary, with the first branch in Rwanda opening to customers on 30 June 2014.
Later, the Bank was closed by the Bank of Uganda on October 20, 2016, saying that it had failed to comply with a capital call on July 1, 2016. Back then, Central Bank Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile said that the Bank takeover was guided by the systemic nature of the under-capitalized institution to avoid financial sector instability.
The bank was a large financial services provider in Uganda. As of 31 December 2015, Crane Bank’s assets were UGX:1.81 trillion, with shareholders’ equity of UGX:281.43 billion. In October 2015, it had more than 750,000 customers.
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