The Court of Appeal has ruled that the Commercial Court wrongly awarded Ham Enterprises proprietor Hamis Kiggundu Shs120bn is his case against Diamond Trust Bank.
Commercial Court judge, Justice Henry Peter Adonyo was faulted by the Court of Appeal judges for having failed to here and determine determine case om its merit, instead relying on a mere point of law arising from the proceedings.
The Court of Appeal judges that made the ruling this Wednesday afternoon included Deputy Chief Justice Richard Buteera plus Justices Kenneth Kakuru and Christopher Ozama Madrama.
In an unanimous decision, the judges faulted Justice Adonyo for applying a principle in matters where a defendant refused to file a defence.
However, in this case, Diamond Trust Bank had already filed its defence which the judge chose to ignore hence wrongly announcing the compensation award to Ham.
The court of Appeal has now ordered that the case is retried on all issues and a judgement is entered on merit. Ham has been ordered to pay the costs of the appeal.
Diamond Trust Bank appeales contesting an order by the commercial court to pay Kiggundu Shs120 billion after the Commercial court found out that its partner Diamond Trust Bank Kenya, from whom Kiggundu borrowed the money, had no operating licence to carry out business in Uganda.
The decision was based on a suit filed by Kiggundu, through his companies; Ham Enterprises and Kiggs International, against DTB Bank. He accused the banks of illegally taking out more than Shs120 billion from his bank account in Uganda.
Kiggundu stated that between 2011 and 2016 his companies were given loans totalling 41 billion by both DTB Uganda and Kenya and he deposited with them several properties as security.
However, Kiggundu said that as his companies were repaying the loans, he realized Shs 34 billion was illegally removed from his shillings account and $23m from the dollar account.
Justice Adonyo ruled in Kiggundu’s favour that the credit facilities offered by DTB-Kenya to Kiggundu were illegal since the bank is not licensed to carry out the financial institution business in Uganda.
Adonyo also ordered the banks to return the properties that Kiggundu had mortgaged citing that the evidence on record indicates that all the loans obtained were fully settled. He also ordered the refund of the monies the banks had deducted illegally from his accounts.
Kiggundu and his lawyer Fred Muwema say they are going to appeal the order for a retrial.