Businessman sues UBA.
A Kampala businessman has sued United Bank of Africa (UBA) for negligence. Mody Nouhou Barry is seeking to recover US$21,000 (over sh48m), which was allegedly defrauded by the bank’s customer using a fake website.
Barry claims that he purchased two second-hand vehicles using a website owned by Annik Auto Care Ltd, which is a customer of UBA in Kampala. He also seeks to recover general damages, arguing that the bank had failed to exercise due diligence in protecting people’s money. Through Kampala Associated Advocates, Barry filed his case in the Commercial Court. He claims that while in Kenya’s capital Nairobi in August last year, he visited a website of Annik Auto Care Ltd that purported to be selling second-hand vehicles. He then entered into negotiations with the company’s manager, Kyagulanyi Jackson Duggar for the purchase of the two second-hand motor vehicles on the website of Annik Auto Care Ltd through its manager who held an account No. 0116002011 with UBA. But now the businessman complains that investigations later revealed that Kyagulanyi Jackson Duggar and Annik Auto Care was one person.
‘Conned’
Barry alleges that after he had wired the money from his Barclays Bank account in Nairobi to Annik Auto Care’s UBA account in Kampala, he realized that he had been swindled. The realization dawned on him when he was told by a company official to wait for ten more days before the vehicles could be delivered to him.
On further inquiry, suspicious, a UBA official told him that Kyagulanyi Jackson Duggar was possibly a cheat attempting to defraud him. And when he asked the bank to stop the transfer of the money he had transferred to its customer’s account, the ‘bank failed to do the needful instantaneously.’ He was compelled to fly from Nairobi to Kampala where he reported the matter to the police. Barry further stated that although Kyagulanyi Jackson Duggar’s business premises were indicated on the account opening application, the bank had not actually obtained the necessary information to establish its customer’s whereabouts, but allegedly continued to transact business with him, which he argues, amounts to negligence that occasioned him loss of his money.
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