Court dismisses sh250m claim against Equity Bank Uganda

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The Commercial Division of the High Court has dismissed a case against Equity Bank (U) Limited in which Margaret Nalubega sought sh250 million in damages.

In a ruling delivered on September 22, 2025, Justice Dr Ginamia Melody Ngwatu threw out Nalubega’s suit in which she had asked the court to award her sh150 million in general damages and sh100 million in punitive damages.

However, the court stated that she was not entitled to any damages against the bank as she claimed.

Nalubega had dragged Equity Bank (U) Limited back to court, accusing the lender of frustrating her efforts to access new financing despite a consent judgment that had cleared her of indebtedness.

She had operated an account with the bank and maintained a running loan facility until April 27, 2015. In 2016, she filed a suit seeking the discharge of her loan and the release of her land titles.

On June 10, 2019, court entered a consent judgment in her favour, discharging her loan obligations and ordering Equity Bank to release her certificates of title. The judgment also awarded her sh50 million in damages and costs.

Following the ruling, Nalubega wrote to the bank on June 13, 2019, requesting clearance of her Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) financial card. She was referred to M/s Compuscan, which informed her that it could only act on the recommendation of the mortgage bank.

To her shock, Nalubega later discovered that her CRB records still reflected her as a defaulter, making her ineligible for a sh200 million loan she sought to expand her businesses. She accused Equity Bank of failing to update her status despite the consent judgment, thereby crippling her access to credit.

The court noted that Nalubega had not adduced evidence to satisfy the requirements for an award of damages.

“In the instant matter, plaintiff has not adduced any evidence to satisfy any of the elements of the award.

There is no evidence that the defendant (Equity Bank) provided the Credit Reference Bureau with wrong information concerning the plaintiff, therefore, the rest of the ingredients fail.

The only issue in this matter is the defendant failed to update the plaintiff’s credit records with Credit information within the stipulated statutory time, though it later did so. The plaintiff did not incur any loss whatsoever that this court is aware of,” Ngwatu said.