Wakilii

Pegasus Technologies Limited v Uganda Revenue Authority and Attorney General (Miscellaneous Application No. 29 of 2023)

High Court · [2025] UGCOMMC 167 · 2025 Application Granted AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Interlocutory application for discovery arising from Civil Suit No. 489 of 2020
Decision
Application for discovery granted with protective orders for confidentiality; compliance required within 90 days

Observed later treatment

Cited — treatment unverified cited in 1 (treatment unverified) Sequitur — Uganda’s citator · Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

Citator coverage is limited to judgments in the Wakilii corpus and source-matched treatment records. Absence of a signal is not an assertion that the case remains good law.

No adverse treatment recorded Cited 1 time with no adverse treatment recorded; not yet tested on the merits. Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — a deterministic signal, not legal advice.

AI-generated summary. This summary was generated by AI from the full text of the judgment. It may contain errors or omissions—always read the source judgment before relying on it.

Holding

The High Court held that an interlocutory application for discovery may properly be brought against non-parties who are custodians of relevant documents, even where those parties are not joined in the main suit. Procedural non-compliance in commencing the application by Notice of Motion rather than Chamber Summons was not fatal where the court had jurisdiction and no prejudice resulted. The court granted discovery of tax returns and immigration records, finding them relevant to testing the defendants' defence in the underlying fraud suit, and held that confidentiality alone does not bar discovery where the court can take measures to protect confidential information. The absence of a prior discovery request was not fatal in circumstances where the respondents would not have complied voluntarily.

Outcome

Application for discovery granted with protective orders for confidentiality; compliance required within 90 days

Facts

Pegasus Technologies Limited, a software development company, provided e-commerce aggregation services through its FlexiPay platform to Stanbic Bank Uganda Limited. Between February 2016 and February 2018, nine companies signed up as sub-merchants on the platform. In 2018, Stanbic Bank identified suspicious online transactions on the accounts of these sub-merchants. A forensic investigation revealed that directors of these companies had perpetrated fraud by illegally accessing visa cardholder details and triggering fraudulent transactions totalling UGX 2,303,169,441. Visa charged back these amounts, and Pegasus was obliged to indemnify Stanbic Bank. Pegasus commenced Civil Suit No. 489 of 2020 against the sub-merchants and their directors to recover the loss. The defendants in the main suit alleged that the transactions were genuine payments from customers who consumed their services in Uganda. Pegasus then filed this interlocutory application seeking discovery of the defendants' tax returns from the Uganda Revenue Authority and immigration records of the alleged customers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to test the defendants' assertion that foreign nationals had travelled to Uganda and paid for services through the FlexiPay platform.

Issues

  1. Whether the application was properly brought against non-parties to the main suit.
  2. Whether the application was commenced by the proper procedure (Notice of Motion versus Chamber Summons).
  3. Whether the documents sought to be discovered are relevant to the matters in issue in the main suit.
  4. Whether the applicant has demonstrated the existence of the documents sought.
  5. Whether the confidentiality of tax returns and immigration records bars their discovery.
  6. Whether the applicant was required to make a prior request for discovery before filing the application.
  7. Whether the application constitutes a fishing expedition due to imprecision in identifying the documents sought.

Orders

  • An order issues that the Commissioner - Domestic Taxes at the 1st Respondent produces the tax returns of the defendants in Civil Suit No. 489 of 2020 showing incomes received and declared for the period between January 2018 and December 2019.
  • An order issues that the Commissioner - Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control, Ministry of Internal Affairs produces the travel history/immigration details of the named persons for the period of January 2018 and December 2019.
  • Where any information being the subject of the discovery order is not in existence, the Respondents shall certify that no such information exists to the Court.
  • The Respondents shall comply with the discovery orders within ninety (90) days from the date of this ruling.
  • The Learned Deputy Registrar shall make arrangements to ensure that the confidentiality of the records/documents sought to be discovered is maintained.
  • All documents presented by the Respondents as part of the discovery ordered herein shall be sealed and expunged from the public record of the proceedings in the main suit.
  • The Learned Deputy Registrar shall make arrangements for the special and confidential recording and safekeeping of the documents presented by the Respondents as part of the discovery.
  • The Applicant shall bear all the costs for the discovery, including all costs for production, copying, certifying and compiling the documents to be discovered.
  • The Respondent will be entitled to the costs of the application in the event the Applicant/Plaintiff is not successful in the main suit, but in any case the Applicant will meet its own costs.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Discovery — Joinder of Non-Parties — Custodians of Documents
An interlocutory application for discovery may properly be brought against non-parties to the main suit where those parties are custodians of documents relevant to the matters in issue, and there is no rule requiring a party to confine interlocutory applications to parties to the main suit.
Civil Procedure — Procedure — Notice of Motion versus Chamber Summons — Procedural Non-Compliance
Where an application is brought by Notice of Motion instead of Chamber Summons as required by the Civil Procedure Rules, the procedural non-compliance is not fatal if the court has jurisdiction to determine the application, the evidence in each procedure is by affidavit, and no prejudice results to the respondents.
Evidence — Discovery — Relevance — Test for Relevance
For an order of discovery to be made, the document or information must be shown to be relevant, meaning it must have any tendency to make the existence of any fact of consequence to the suit more or less probable than it would be without the evidence, and discovery rules are given broad and liberal treatment such that even very weak material evidence will be deemed relevant if it has any tendency to prove or disprove a fact in issue.
Evidence — Discovery — Confidentiality — Not an Absolute Bar to Discovery
The confidential character of a document is not, by itself, a bar to its production by way of discovery, as the court can take measures to guard the confidentiality of documents while ensuring that the document is produced, and confidentiality is not a separate head of privilege but a material consideration when privilege is claimed on the ground of public interest.
Civil Procedure — Discovery — Prior Request — Effect of Non-Compliance
Although an applicant ought to request discovery before filing an application for discovery, non-compliance with the requirement to make a prior discovery request does not automatically render an application for discovery fatally defective, particularly where the respondents would not have allowed the discovery request in any event.
Evidence — Discovery — Fishing Expedition — Identification of Documents with Sufficient Particularity
An application for discovery is not a fishing expedition where the applicant identifies the documents sought with sufficient particularity to prevent abuse, even if the documents are not identified with mathematical exactness, and for regulatory discoveries it suffices for the regulator to search the record in the impugned period and indicate where there are no records in respect of the required information.
Civil Procedure — Costs — Discovery Applications — Costs to Abide Outcome of Main Suit
Where an application for discovery would have been unnecessary had the applicant made a prior request for discovery, and the application is brought by wrong procedure, and the main suit from which the application arises is still pending, costs of the discovery application may be ordered to abide the outcome of the main suit, with the applicant bearing its own costs and all costs of discovery production.

Legislation cited (12)

Cases cited (26)

  • Simbamanyo Estates Limited and Another v Equity Bank Uganda Limited and Others (Miscellaneous Application No. 583 of 2023)
  • Gids Consults Limited and Another v Naren Mehta (Miscellaneous Application No. 864 of 2022)
  • Saggu v Roadmaster Cycles Ltd [2002] 1 EA 258
  • Cwezi Properties v UDB (Miscellaneous Application No. 1315 of 2022)
  • Dresdner Bank Ag v Sango Bay Estates Ltd (No. 3) [1971] 1 EA 326
  • Dresdner Bank Ag v Sango Bay Estates Ltd (No. 4) [1971] 1 EA 409
  • Simbamanyo Estates and Another v Equity Bank Uganda Limited and Others (Miscellaneous Application No. 853 of 2024)
  • Loftin v. Martin 776 S.W.2d 145 (1989)
  • Compagnie Financiere du Pacifique v Peruvian Guano Co (1882) 11 QBD 55
  • Medtronic Inc v Guidant Corp Civil File Nos. 00-1473 (MJD/JGL), 00-2503 (MJD/JGL) (D. Minn. May. 25, 2004)
  • Mutesi v Attorney General (Miscellaneous Application No. 19 of 2016)
  • Science Research Council v Nassé [1979] IRLR 485
  • O'Callaghan v Mahon [2007] IESC 17
  • R v Chief Constable of West Midlands Ex p Wiley [1995] 1 AC 274
  • Alfred Crompton Amusement Machines Ltd v Customs and Excise Commissioners (No. 2) [1972] 2 QB 102
  • Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Ltd v Murphy [2006] IEHC 276
  • AKT Project Management and Others v DFCU Bank (Miscellaneous Application No. 2046 of 2023)
  • John Kato v Muhibauer AG and Another (Miscellaneous Application No. 175 of 2011)
  • Anguba Peter v Housing Finance Bank (Miscellaneous Application No. 434 of 2022)
  • Lustman & Company (1990) Limited v Corporate Business Centre Limited and 4 Others (Civil Suit No. 311 of 2018) [2022] KEHC 42
  • Harry Ssempa v Kambagambire David (Civil Suit No. 408 of 2014)
  • Iyamuleme David v Attorney General (Supreme Court Civil Appeal No. 4 of 2013)
  • Kinyera George v Victoria Seeds Limited (Civil Suit No. 604 of 2015)
  • Candiru Alice v Amandua Festo and Another (Civil Suit No. 19 of 2014)
  • Anglo-Cyprian Trade Agencies Ltd v Paphos Wine Industries Ltd [1951] 1 All ER 873
  • UDB v Muganga Construction (1985) HCB 35

Cases citing this judgment (1)

How later Ugandan judgments in the Wakilii corpus have cited this case. Treatment labels come from Sequitur — Uganda’s citator — each backed by a verbatim span from the citing judgment, and are not an assertion that this case is, or is not, good law.

Full judgment

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Pegasus Technologies Limited v Uganda Revenue Authority and Attorney General (Miscellaneous Application No. 29 of 2023) [2025] UGCommC 167 (3 April 2025)
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.