The Commercial Court judge, Justice David Wangutusi has Tuesday ruled that DFCU bank should compensate Shakil Pathan Ismail a former Crane Bank worker for illegitimate deductions on his salary and additional suit damages.
Shakil filed a legal suit, number 236 of 2017 seeking recovery of 62,000,000/= being monies unlawfully blocked/deducted from his salary account, general damages, exemplary damages, interest and costs of this suit.
The plaintiff was one of the employees of Crane Bank Limited whose employment contract was assigned to the defendant (DFCU Bank). However, his contract was later terminated by the defendant. It is in the plaintiff’s claim that despite of the termination of his employment, no settlement regarding the deductions on his salary account was been made thus he filed this suit seeking recovery of the same.
The plaintif was expected to earn a monthly salary of UGX 7,920,000/= and had not received his full salary for a period of 12 month after DFCU had taken over.
Denying the liability, DFCU contended that she is not a successor in title to Crane Bank Limited but only acquired some of its assets and liabilities after taking over January 2017. Bank of Uganda in exercise of its powers as the Central Bank under the Financial Institutions Act No. 2 of 2004 took over the management of Crane Bank Limited on the basis that it was significantly undercapitalized as defined by the law and placed it under the receivership of DFCU Bank Limited.
By way of a purchase of assets and assumption of liabilities agreement dated 25th January 2017 the Defendant as buyer took over some of the assets and liabilities of Crane Bank Limited (In Receivership) from the Receiver Bank of Uganda. The Defendant was assigned Crane Bank Limited’s rights and liabilities under all its existing employment contracts subject to certain exclusion clauses.
