By Spy Uganda
Things seem not to be good for ‘tycoon’ Patrick Bitature who is set to lose multibillion properties due to Vantage Capital debt scandal.
Starting this from its genesis, on May 18, 2022, Vantage Capital through its lawyers of Kirunda and Wasike Co.Advocates hired Quickway Auctioneers & Court Bailifs to advertise Bitature properties around Kampala after he failed to pay a loan amounting to UGX100B.
The properties that were advertised in various newspapers include;
- Protea Hotel-Naguru (Skyz Hotel)
- Elizabeth Royal Apartments
- LRV3891 Folio 18 plot 1 water lane Naguru, Kampala
- LRV3895 Folio 3 plot 5 water lane Naguru, Kampala
- LRV3895 Folio 4 plot 3 water lane Naguru, Kampala
- LRV3435 Folio 10 plot 12 water lane Naguru, Kampala.
The above act left Bitature in squeaky bum mode thus rushing to court through his lawyers of Muwema & Co.Advocates and sued Vantage lawyers, Quickway Auctioneers, seeking a temporary injunction on the auction process.
Bitature also went a head and issued a notice about the auction advert partially stating, ”It is a malicious advert whose sole purpose is to alarm and cause irreparable damage to our client’s business and reputation. Our client’s properties are not liable to be advertised for sale by any mortgagee purported to be represented by Kirunda & Wasige Advocates and Quickway Auctioneers and Court Bailiffs.”
Unfortunately for Bitature, the Commercial Division of the High Court presided over by Justice Stephen Mubiru, has trashed his application reasoning that there were no serious questions of the law and fact to be tried by court to justify the grant of a temporary injunction.
In a ruling delivered on June 15, 2022, Justice Mubiru, argued that it was unfortunate that Simba Properties sued Counsel Robert Kirunda, Counsel Noah Shamah Wasige of Kirunda and Wasige Advocates and Bailiff Festus Katerega of Quick Way Auctioneers and Court Bailiff in their individual capacity, yet they were representing a known entity (Vantage) when they advertised their properties for auctioning in the newspapers.
“On the basis of all the foregoing considerations, I found that this application and the underlying suit, were entirely misconceived on account of the fact that they were instituted against agents of a known principal and on ground that the matters placed in issue in the suit are already the subject of a subsisting arbitral process,” ruled Justice Mubiru.
“In the result, I found that a prima facie case had not been established. There were no serious questions of the law and fact to be tried by this court to justify the grant of a temporary injunction. The application was thus dismissed with costs to the respondents and the underlying suit was struck out with costs to the defendants,” the judge further ruled.
With the ruling of the court, it means that Vantage can go ahead and advertise and sale the aforementioned properties and recover its outstanding loan against the businessman Bitature.
Background Of This Matter
Simba Properties Investment Company Limited (SPIC) (as borrower) and Patrick Bitature (as guarantor and promotor) borrowed US$10,000,000 (Loan) from Vantage to refinance a portion of the Simba Groups’ existing debt and to fund the completion of Simba’s Skyz Hotel in 2014 which loan matured and fell due for repayment in December 2019.
But instead of making efforts to repay the loan, the Simba Group and Bitature changed gears and asked for legal paperwork for the company that borrowed him noting that the company isn’t legally registered in Uganda and therefore can’t carry out any business, let alone borrowing billions of money from it. This is when things stormed Courts of law.
