The commercial division of the High Court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Westwinds Trading Company Matco Ltd against Exim Bank (Uganda) Ltd.
The judge ruled that the case was filed incorrectly under Ugandan law, and ordered Westwinds to pay the bank’s legal costs.
The dispute started when Westwinds accused Exim Bank of wrongly transferring about $ 95,841 (around Shs 350 million) from a bank account. The money was part of a deal for buying 476 tonnes of soya beans. Westwinds had sent $ 238,000 to an account held by MarkAfrica (U) Ltd at Exim Bank in February 2022.
Westwinds claimed the bank moved the funds to a law firm, Wamimbi & Co. Advocates, before a court order allowed it, calling the action negligent and illegal.
Westwinds first sued the bank in 2022 but that case was thrown out in December 2023 because Westwinds’ lawyers did not show up for a court hearing.
Under Uganda’s Civil Procedure Rules (Order 9, Rule 22), if the person suing doesn’t appear, the case gets dismissed.
The rules say that after such a dismissal, you can’t just file a new lawsuit on the same issue. Instead, you must ask the court to restart the old case and explain why you missed the hearing.
Westwinds ignored this and filed a new lawsuit in July 2024, repeating the same complaints. Exim Bank asked the court to strike it out, saying it had no valid basis. Justice Patience Rubagumya agreed with the bank.
In her ruling, she said the new suit broke the rules and was “incompetent.” She cited past cases, like one from 2022 where a similar mistake led to dismissal, and another from 2016 emphasizing that courts can’t allow illegal filings.
“The plaintiff (Westwinds) was precluded from bringing a fresh suit,” the judge wrote, quoting the rules. She added that once a problem like this is noticed, the court must act, even if not raised in initial arguments.
Exim Bank argued that Westwinds had no direct relationship with them, the account was in MarkAfrica’s name, and Westwinds’ representative was just a signatory. Westwinds disagreed, saying they had a banker-customer link because of the soya beans deal and advice from bank staff.
But the judge didn’t decide on these details. She focused only on the filing error and dismissed the case without a full trial.
