EXPLAINER: Inside Billionaire Sudhir Ruparelia’s €200M London High Court Battle Against Dutch Banking Giant Rabobank Over Crane Bank

What the report says

Ugandan businessman Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia and former Crane Bank shareholders have taken their long-running dispute over the bank’s 2016 closure to London’s High Court, in a case reported by Watchdog Uganda as seeking at least €200 million in damages. The suit names Dutch lender Rabobank and two former senior executives, and argues that the Crane Bank takeover was tied to an unlawful, corrupt and improperly structured process.

According to Watchdog Uganda, the conflict began when the Bank of Uganda placed Crane Bank under statutory management in October 2016, citing undercapitalization, before transferring its assets, branches and liabilities to dfcu Bank in January 2017. Ruparelia and the former owners have consistently disputed that decision, saying the bank was solvent and was sold below its value. The London filing, handled by Greenberg Traurig, is said to rely on internal communications, leaked emails and corporate records linked to the acquisition.

A central allegation described in the report is that one email referenced a $27.5 million payment from the sale of Crane Bank’s loan portfolio that was allegedly intended for central bank officials without standard accounting entry. The article also links the case to wider concerns about banking governance and cross-border accountability. In Uganda, a 2019 parliamentary committee report had criticized the central bank’s handling of the takeover, including record-keeping and valuation issues.

The case matters because it tests the legal exposure of international banking actors in a high-profile African bank collapse and could further scrutinize how regulators and private investors handled one of Uganda’s best-known lender takeovers.