Ruparelia family seeks $225 million over seized Crane Bank

Uganda’s richest family will face one of the country’s largest banks in a London courtroom on Monday, when a trial opens over the 2017 sale of Crane Bank, the lender Sudhir Ruparelia built and lost.

The trial before the Commercial Court of the High Court in London begins on Oct. 5, and Ruparelia is expected to address the court. It is scheduled to run for 12 to 16 weeks, into January 2027.

Ruparelia and the other former owners of Crane Bank are seeking damages of more than £170 million. Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad has put the claim at €200 million, about $225 million.

A family case

There are seven claimants: Crane Bank Limited, Sudhir Ruparelia, his wife Jyotsna Ruparelia, their daughter Meera Ruparelia, the estate of their son Rajiv Ruparelia, who died in 2023, Sheena Ruparelia and former Crane Bank shareholder Tom Mugenga.

They face 15 defendants. These are dfcu Bank and its parent, dfcu Limited, along with former dfcu executives Jimmy Mugerwa, Juma Kisaame and William Sekabembe. They also include several of dfcu’s former institutional investors: British International Investment, the UK’s development finance institution; Norway’s Norfinance; Rabo Partnerships, a unit of Dutch lender Rabobank; and Arise, an investor in African banks. Six other individuals are also named as defendants: Stephen Caley, Michael Alan Turner, Albert Jonkergouw, Willem Cramer, Ola Rinnan and Deepak Malik.

What the family alleges

The dispute goes back to October 2016, when the Bank of Uganda took over Crane Bank, saying it was insolvent. In January 2017, the central bank transferred selected assets and liabilities to dfcu.

Ruparelia has always rejected that account. He argues that the bank was solvent, that the transfer was unlawful and that the shareholders’ assets were heavily undervalued. He also says the sale went ahead without an independent valuation.

The claimants allege that central bank officials and other defendants took part in a scheme that deprived them of Crane Bank’s value, and that arrangements involving the proceeds from selling a portfolio of Crane Bank loans formed part of it.

dfcu denies any wrongdoing and says the claim has no merit. Its management has argued that the Bank of Uganda approached other banks about buying Crane Bank, and that dfcu was the only one to make an offer.

None of the allegations has been decided by a court.

A costly fight for dfcu

The case is already hurting dfcu financially. The bank swung to a loss in the first half of 2026, blaming the cost of defending itself in London. Besides its Ugandan lawyers, it has hired the London law firm Freshfields to work on the case.

Pretrial rulings have gone partly each way. In March, the London court rejected an attempt by dfcu to change its defense so it could treat findings by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers as proven facts. dfcu can rely on the PwC reports and on the fact that regulators used them, but it cannot present their conclusions as established. The judge also refused the claimants’ bid to have the PwC reports thrown out, and ordered dfcu to pay part of the claimants’ costs.

An empire that kept growing

The trial comes nearly a decade after the family lost its bank. In that time, Ruparelia’s business has continued to expand across real estate, education, hospitality and agriculture.

The family’s holdings sit mainly in the Ruparelia Group, which owns hundreds of commercial properties in Kampala through Meera Investments, along with Speke Resort Munyonyo, a string of hotels and several private schools. This week, Ruparelia completed the purchase of Old Mutual’s former UAP Insurance building on Kimathi Avenue in Kampala.

Ruparelia started Crane Bank in 1995, and by the time of its takeover, it was one of Uganda’s largest lenders. Losing it was the biggest setback of his career, and the family’s legal battle has since run for nine years across several jurisdictions.

A win in London would bring the family a large payout and a court ruling in its favor against dfcu and the other defendants. A loss would be a major blow in a fight the family has pursued for nearly a decade.