COURT 

Justice Paul Wolimbwa Gadenya of the Commercial Court will on April 24, 2019 rule whether Sebalu & Lule Advocates should not represent DFCU Bank in business law suits involving Crane Management Services Limited, a company owned by city mogul Sudhir Ruparelia.       

The Crane Management Limited, a company that oversees a conglomerate of companies in the Ruparelia Group of Companies filed an application seeking to block the city lawyers from representing dfcu Bank Ltd, citing potential conflict of interest on the side of the lawyers.

In the main law suit that was filled in the Land Division of the High Court, Crane Management Limited sued DFCU Bank Ltd and Bank of Uganda, seeking to be paid rental arrears amounting to sh2.9b and $385,728.54 from different properties including the liquidated Crane Bank Limited.

Recently, Bank of Uganda liquidated Crane Bank Limited and handed it over to dfcu Bank Limited that is currently running it.

Justice Gadenya became the third judge to handle the application after Justice David Kutosi Wangutusi, the head of the Commercial Court and his deputy Justice Elizabeth Jane Alividza had declined to hear the same. 

Submitting for Crane Management Limited, Joseph Kyazze emphasised that the law firm should be barred from representing dfcu Bank Ltd against Crane Management Limited, because the lawyers had earlier, represented it in several cases pertaining to it as far back as 2012.  

The lawyer submitted further that in view of the confidentiality between a client and advocate, it would be total breach of professional conduct for the lawyers to accept instructions from dfcu bank against it in the same matter.

He cited the affidavit of Rajiv Ruparelia, a director supporting the application in which he confirmed that their business relationship had never been interrupted hitherto.  So, it would be a breach of the Advocates Act under the laws of Uganda and the Advocates (professional conduct) Regulations if they accepted to represent the dfcu bank against Crane Management.

However, Peter Walubiri and Stephen Mubiru-Kalenge, who represented the law firm and the bank respectively, asked the court to dismiss the application, saying that the applicant had failed to specifically point out the particular confidential information that would prejudice the case.

However, the lawyers conceded that the law firm had ever acted and is still acting for it, but generally. So, the applicant is only trying to deny the lawyers from practicing their profession. 

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