In 2012, George William Kiyega, a Kampala-based construction engineer, walked into dfcu Bank and borrowed Shs318 million, secured against land he owned in Bunamwaya, Wakiso District. He repaid the loan.
By his account, that should have been the end of it. Thirteen years later, Mr Kiyega sat before a panel of five Supreme Court justices on April 16, 2025, without a lawyer, representing himself and his company, Wills International Engineers and Contractors Limited, in a case that has become one of Uganda’s most closely watched commercial disputes. On the other side of the courtroom was dfcu Bank, represented by senior counsel Timothy Masembe Kanyerezi and the law firm MMAKS Advocates.
The case has wound through every tier of Uganda’s court system. It has produced a split Court of Appeal judgment that found the bank’s conduct illegal and fraudulent, a contempt enforcement battle in the High Court, and a damages award that, if left intact, would run into the billions of shillings. Dfcu denies wrongdoing and has appealed to the Court of Appeal judgment on seven grounds, and maintains it acted within its legal rights throughout. The Supreme Court has reserved judgment. Five justices; Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza, Percy Night Tuhaise, Mike Chibita, Monica Kalyegira Mugenyi, and Muzamiru Kibeedi Mutangula, will have the final word.
What is the dispute all about?
The facts established across more than a decade of proceedings are not, at their core, disputed in their broad outline. What is fiercely contested is their legal meaning. Between 2012 and 2014, Mr Kiyega and his company obtained a series of credit facilities from dfcu, including a Shs200 million medium-term loan and a Shs220 million contract finance facility, both secured against land on Block 265 Plot 7346 at Bunamwaya. A separate piece of land; Plot 7347, was left with the bank for safe custody in connection with an earlier loan that had since been repaid.
According to court records, mortgage charges in respect of the medium-term loan and a performance bond facility were registered on Plot 7347, the safe custody title, rather than on Plot 7346, the intended security. The bank has consistently described at least one of these registrations as an inadvertent error, partly caused by the Commissioner of Land Registration, and says corrective steps were taken. The Court of Appeal majority, however, found that the pattern of encumbrances, including entries recorded on the same day, at the same time, yet bearing different signatures, went beyond administrative error.
Court records show that a Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) official testified in court that a stamp duty certificate produced during proceedings, purportedly showing that dfcu had paid Shs1.1 million in stamp duty on behalf of Mr Kiyega, was not a document issued by the taxman. The Court of Appeal’s majority took that evidence seriously. Dfcu has not publicly addressed the specifics of that testimony, and its legal submissions focus principally on procedural grounds, arguing, among other things, that fraud was never formally pleaded in the original plaint and, therefore, could not lawfully be found by any court.
The dissenting Court of Appeal justice, Ms Elizabeth Musoke, agreed that fraud had not been pleaded and that no finding of fraud should, therefore, have been made. It is one of dfcu’s stronger grounds before the Supreme Court. The bank is also contesting the scale of the damages. The Court of Appeal awarded Shs120 million in general damages, six times the High Court’s original award, plus Shs80 million for each illegal mortgage for each year it remained on the property, a figure the bank’s lawyers describe as exorbitant and accumulating.
What issues are up for consideration?
On the question of Mr Kiyega’s cross-appeal, his argument that damages should run from when the alleged wrongs occurred rather than from the date of the Court of Appeal judgment, dfcu says its position is supported by statute and by Supreme Court precedent. Section 26(2) of the Civil Procedure Act and established case law indicate that where damages must be assessed by a court, interest runs from the date of judgment, not from the date of the underlying act. Mr Kiyega’s cross-appeal on this point is likely to face difficulty.
The Court of Appeal found the bank’s conduct illegal and fraudulent, a finding dfcu contests and which the Supreme Court is now being asked to review. It came after a High Court order in September 2023 had directed dfcu to clear the encumbrances from Plot 7347 within two weeks. Court records indicate the process of clearing the title was still ongoing as late as that same month. The Wills International case is one of 623 such disputes currently before Uganda’s courts, and the numbers behind that figure have alarmed the country’s most senior financial and judicial leaders. The Wills International case is, statistically and structurally, entirely typical. On April 9, 2026, Bank of Uganda Governor Dr Michael Atingi-Ego stood before a judicial colloquium at Serena Hotel, Kigo, and described the scale of the problem in terms that left little room for ambiguity.
‘Currently, about 623 unresolved banking cases are locking up an estimated Shs7 trillion,’ he said. Dr Atingi-Ego added: ‘For the economy, this is dead capital. Every shilling locked in a disputed loan is a shilling that cannot be reinvested into the productive sectors of the economy.’ Chief Justice Dr Flavian Zeija, who took office in January 2026, was equally direct. Within the High Court Commercial Division alone, he said, the monetary value of pending cases stood at approximately Shs3.5 trillion as of February 2026. ‘Alternative dispute resolution, ADR, is no longer optional,’ he told the colloquium, adding, ‘It is a national policy imperative.’
The colloquium, the second of its kind, convened jointly by the Judiciary, the Central Bank, and the Judicial Training Institute, produced a concrete resolution: special mediation centres to be established as the first point of call for banking disputes before they reach the court system. A Judiciary-wide Mediation Settlement Fortnight followed in May 2026. What are the industry’s own lawyers saying? Separate from the Wills International proceedings, two senior lawyers at ENS Africa Uganda, one of the country’s leading corporate law firms- Mr Phillip