Joseph Magezi, a popular city businessman dealing in tiles has been found dead in his house at Bugolobi Flats in Kampala.
His body was discovered decomposing in his house block 21 by neighbours who immediately alerted police.
Mr Magezi had not been seen for days prompting his bodaboda rider to start a search.
Whereas police remained silent on Magezi’s death, neighbours attributed to the Court case in which the deceased battled for the ownership of family company CTM Uganda Limited which deals in imported ceramics.
Neighbours said, the Late was depressed and stressed.
Magezi’s brother involved in the fight for property has been identified as Gregory Magezi
In a court document seen by this website, Magezi lost the case which dragged on since 2013.
He also lost an appeal last February.
In the case, Joseph had accused his brother of colluding with a South African based firm named Italtile Ceramics Group, to enter a consent agreement at the Kampala High Court, forcing CTM to pay the South African firm up to $1.65Million.
As per the consent agreement, CTM “agreed” to pay this amount, failure of which Italtile was to take over the company land and assets located on Plot 26-28 Kibuli Road, Nsambya.
The said amount arose from a loan that CTM had taken from Italtile when the two came together in 2008 to form a special purpose vehicle company named Ulmuss Properties Uganda. CTM needed cash to pay for its shareholding for Ulmuss.
When CTM failed to pay back this loan which had accumulated to over 1.2Million (with interest), Italtile sued them, demanding up to $2million.
Later in 2015, the two parties held deliberations out of court and came up with a consent judgment endorsed by Justice David Wangutisi, in which CTM agreed to pay $1.6Million.
In the talks and subsequent agreement, CTM was represented by Gregory Magezi, its MD.
“The company shareholders were never called to discuss the matters and the terms of the consent judgment were kept secret and never shared with the shareholders,” the deceased argued.
In their judgement however, the Court of Appeal judges sided with High Court’s Justice Wangutusi, ruling that Gregory was not only a shareholder but also the Managing Director of CTM, in which capacity he acted to hammer out the consent judgment.
If he flouted some of the internal rules at CTM in the process, the judges noted that this was not the fault of Italtiles.
“It would make business difficult if persons dealing with a company in good faith would always have to ascertain for themselves that the internal procedures of the company have been complied with before they conclude a transition,” said Justice Kenneth Kakuru in is ruling.