Kampala businessman Patrick Bitature (pictured) has again lost a suit in which he had wanted court to reduce the UGX 194million awarded to Vantage Mezzanine Fund II Partnership, a South African based venture capital. High Court judge Steven Mubiru ruled in favour of Vantage when he held that the UGX194m that had been awarded to them by the deputy registrar of the High Court was excessively low.
In their appeal to the court, Vantage contended that the deputy registrar erred in law and fact when on October 17 2024 taxed the bill of costs and allowed it only UGX 104million and 90million in instruction fees to lawyers. Vantage argued that that sum was manifestly low, unfair, and inconsistent with the Advocates Remuneration and Taxation of Costs Regulations.
They therefore appealed to the court to set it aside and order a new taxation. Patrick Bitature who is sued together with his wife Carol Bitature and his companies; Simba Properties Investment Co. Ltd, Simba Telecom Limited, Elgon Terrace Hotel Limited and Linda Properties Limited also filed a counter appeal arguing that the UGX194million on the contrary was excessive and based on the wrong principles of law. In determining the matter, judge Mubiru found that indeed the deputy registrar had arrived at a wrong decision when she failed to evaluate all the evidence on the record.
He held that for the registrar to say she wasn’t aware of the value of the suit which is USD 26.486million inadvertently occasioned an injustice on Vantage leading her to allow very low instruction fees and cost of the suit. “It was a misdirection on the part of the Deputy Registrar when she declared all aspects of the underlying litigation as having a subject matter whose value was unascertainable. Had she properly directed herself, she would have found that the subject matter of the suit was ascertainable from the pleadings while that of the applications was not. Failure to ascribe the correct value to the subject matter is an error of principle, and therefore this contention succeeds,” the ruling reads in part.
He therefore ordered that the deputy registrar reconsider her order and rise the bill of costs to reflect not only the value of the suit but also its complex nature. With this, therefore, the judge rejected Bitature’s counter appeal that the UGX 194million awarded to Vantage was excessive.
“I find that the conditions are met in this case and therefore it is proper that the appellant’s bill of costs should be remitted to the Taxing Officer for taxation de novo. In the final result, the appeal succeeds and the cross-appeal fails. The award is set aside, and the bill of costs is hereby remitted back to the Deputy Registrar for taxation de novo. This being essentially an error of the part of the Taxing Officer to which none of the parties is a contributory, each party is to bear their costs of this appeal and of the impugned taxation proceedings,” the judge ruled.
Background
Court has twice ruled against Bitature who had sought not to payback USD10million loan contracted from Vantage claiming that it had no legal basis of offering financial services in Uganda where it is not legally registered.
In the ruling of June 2021, court held that there was a valid loan agreement between Bitature and Vantage but declined to get involved instead saying the parties should go for arbitration which was provided for. Vantage claimed over $26.486million (97bn) from Bitature and his companies. It is after this reference that Vantage then sought costs of the three suits which it had won in the high court.
However, when the final determination was done by the registrar, Vantage disputed the amounts awarded hence appealed it in the high court.
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