London, United Kingdom: In a landmark ruling that marks a turning point in the long-standing Crane Bank saga, the High Court of Justice in London has delivered a stinging legal setback to dfcu Bank, striking out parts of its defense and discrediting the controversial PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) audit report that underpinned its position.
The judgment, delivered on July 24, 2025, by Justice Paul Stanley KC, sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court, faulted dfcu Bank’s attempt to introduce the PWC forensic audit as factual evidence in its defense against a suit brought by Crane Bank Limited (CBL) and shareholders led by businessman Sudhir Ruparelia.
The UK court ruled that dfcu cannot rely on PWC’s conclusions as facts, significantly weakening its claims regarding Crane Bank’s financial health and the legitimacy of the 2017 sale.
“This is a heavy litigation,” the judge noted, citing over 10,000 pages of filings and a 12-week trial scheduled for the Michaelmas term of 2026. The judge ruled that dfcu’s bid to incorporate the PWC reports as proof of fact created ambiguity and would obstruct a fair trial.
“The PWC reports, whatever their merits, do not resemble a pleading,” said Justice Stanley. “They were introduced in a way that is inconsistent with effective preparation for a fair trial.”
The ruling strikes at the heart of dfcu’s defense, which sought to justify its acquisition of Crane Bank assets from Bank of Uganda based on findings in the now-discredited PWC audit. The court instead granted Crane Bank’s application to bar dfcu from pleading the reports as truth, limiting their use only as evidence of what regulators might have relied on, not as fact.
Justice Stanley concluded that dfcu can refer to the existence of the PWC reports, but cannot use them to allege that their contents are accurate, and any attempt to rely on the reports as facts would “pose immediate questions” and clutter trial preparation.
The UK High Court also dismissed dfcu’s attempt to amend its defense to include new justifications based on the PWC documents. This follows earlier criticism in Ugandan courts about the propriety and legality of the Crane Bank sale, raising questions about Bank of Uganda’s role and potential regulatory overreach.
PwC Report Branded “Tainted and Dubious”
CBL lawyers fiercely opposed the report, raising serious red flags about its authorship, legality, and authenticity. Among the key objections was that the report was authored not by PwC Global, but by an unregulated local entity unlawfully using the PwC name.
CBL also cited that multiple versions of the report existed, some unsigned, others backdated or with different content, raising doubts over authenticity. The report, Sudhir’s legal argued, lacked supporting appendices and critical underlying documents, which the Court said rendered it unreliable.
Under Ugandan law, such a report by an unlicensed body is inadmissible, a position the UK Court found persuasive.
CBL also told the Court it had been denied access to its own records—now held by dfcu and Bank of Uganda—making it impossible to challenge the report’s contents.
After rejecting dfcu’s attempt to introduce the report, the Court awarded legal costs to Crane Bank Limited. dfcu was ordered to pay £90,000 immediately, with the full amount to be determined later. The total claim in legal costs exceeds UGX 1.7 billion, marking a serious financial and reputational hit for dfcu.
Implications for the Crane Bank Takeover
The ruling could revive long-standing scrutiny into how Crane Bank was closed and handed over to dfcu. In 2017, Bank of Uganda sold Crane Bank to dfcu under a controversial process that Parliament’s COSASE committee and the Auditor General later questioned.
The court decision effectively aligns with Crane Bank’s argument that the takeover lacked transparency and was based on flawed and unverified allegations.
Dr. Sudhir’s legal camp has consistently maintained that Crane Bank’s closure was illegal, and that neither BoU nor dfcu followed due process. The UK court’s decision to reject dfcu’s central piece of evidence has strengthened that position.
Crane Bank was controversially placed under statutory management by Bank of Uganda in October 2016 and sold to dfcu in January 2017. Sudhir Ruparelia and his co-claimants allege the sale was executed under a “corrupt scheme” and that the bank was “highly profitable” and “financially sound” before the takeover.
The High Court judgment explicitly allows the Crane Bank claimants to proceed with their core arguments: that Bank of Uganda manufactured financial instability to facilitate a rushed and undervalued sale, and that dfcu participated in the scheme knowingly.
The ruling now paves the way for a full trial on the merits of Crane Bank’s claim, putting dfcu, Bank of Uganda, and other defendants under intense scrutiny in a UK court setting where legal standards are stringent and transparency is paramount.
Below is the full ruling from the London Court
If you would like your article/opinion to be published on Uganda’s most authoritative news platform, send your submission on: [email protected]. You can also follow DailyExpress on WhatsApp and on Twitter (X) for realtime updates.
