dfcu Limited has warned shareholders and investors that it expects to report a loss for the first six months of 2026, blaming the outcome on rising legal expenses linked to the ongoing Crane Bank case before the English High Court.
In a profit warning issued under Rule 38(3)(c) of the Uganda Securities Exchange Listing Rules, 2025, the bank said its unaudited financial results for the period ending 30 June 2026 will show a loss compared with the same period last year.
According to dfcu, the expected loss is largely the result of substantial legal costs incurred while defending itself in the long-running commercial dispute involving the acquisition of Crane Bank’s assets after the bank’s collapse.
The case was filed in 2020 by Crane Bank Limited and some of its former shareholders against dfcu Limited, dfcu Bank and other parties. The claim challenges the 2017 transfer of selected Crane Bank assets and liabilities to dfcu following the Bank of Uganda’s takeover of the lender.
Despite the anticipated loss, dfcu said its core business remains strong and financially stable.
The bank said its underlying fundamentals continue to improve and insisted that its overall business performance remains on a positive growth path despite the exceptional legal costs weighing on its financial results.
The latest development comes after the English High Court recently issued an important procedural ruling in the case, rejecting key parts of dfcu’s attempt to amend its defence.
Deputy High Court Judge Paul Stanley KC ruled that dfcu could not rely on findings contained in forensic reports prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as though they were established facts without proving them during the trial.
The lawsuit centres on claims by Crane Bank and its former shareholders that the Bank of Uganda unlawfully took over the bank in 2016 before transferring most of its assets and liabilities to dfcu in January 2017 at what they describe as a significantly undervalued price.
The claimants further allege that the takeover and sale formed part of a corrupt scheme in which concerns over Crane Bank’s financial health were deliberately created to justify the transaction.
In its defence, dfcu has relied heavily on two PwC forensic reports commissioned by the Bank of Uganda after Crane Bank was placed under statutory management. The reports raised several concerns about the bank’s management and financial position.
However, the English High Court ruled that while dfcu may refer to the existence of the PwC reports and the fact that regulators considered them when making decisions, it cannot present the reports’ conclusions as proven facts unless they are established through evidence during the trial.
Judge Stanley said dfcu’s proposed amendments blurred the distinction between allegations contained in the PwC reports and facts the bank intended to prove in court, creating what he described as a “dangerous ambiguity”.
He also warned that incorporating large portions of the reports into the defence would unnecessarily expand the scope of the case, introduce numerous additional factual disputes and make the already complex litigation even more difficult to resolve.
As a result, the court limited dfcu’s reliance on the PwC reports to explaining the context in which the Bank of Uganda and regulators made their decisions, without allowing the bank to treat the reports’ findings as established facts.
