LegalReports

If you’re a corporate lawyer or you engage in corporate litigation, you need to read the case of F.C.M.B. v. Abdul Gafaru & Co. Ltd. (2026) 6 NWLR (Pt. 2038) 179. In this case, the Supreme Court held that although a registered company upon incorporation becomes a legal entity and acquires a separate and distinct personalty from its owners, such company cannot claim damages for injured feelings and emotional distress like a natural human being. The implication is that when seeking damages on behalf of a company, you restrict it to pecuniary or proprietary damages but not anything that has to do with feelings and emotions. The court held as follows: “Upon incorporation, a company becomes a separate and distinct legal entity, different from its shareholders, who are its owners and from its directors who are its managers. Such a company enjoys perpetual succession and continues to exist notwithstanding any changes in its shareholders or management. As a legal person, it can own property, enter contracts and conduct business in its own name. The Directors of the company are its human managers but they are distinct and separate from the personality of the company. The respondents who were the plaintiffs, being registered companies are not natural persons with body, mind, feelings or emotions. Therefore, they cannot suffer pain, humiliations, trauma or emotional distress in the human sense. They, as companies can claim other pecuniary or proprietary damages but not anything that has to do with feelings and emotions. This is apt because they are artificial personalities without flesh, blood and soul.” The above position is logical considering the fact a company is an artificial entity without flesh, blood and soul. In fact, this remains the law until set aside. Learned colleagues, just for academic purpose, if a company has been given rights of a natural human being and it subsequently acts through its officers and directors, why can’t the same company, “through its directors and officers” claim emotional damages? Kindly share your opinion on this. Thank you. Kindly follow for more legal tips and contents.

@KahimaSilas That’s the interesting aspect of this case. The Applicant introduced the mediation admissions.

@TheLegalReports I thought mediation proceedings are supposed to be confidential. How did the trial judge know about them?

The Commercial Court has found: - “a prima facie” case of potential abuse of corporate personality after directors of a company admitted to a loan transaction entered into by their company during mediation only to turn around and deny the same in their pleadings in the Court!

Case: Harvest Haven Limited v Sanyulyo Financial Services Ltd and Others (Miscellaneous Application No. 1773 of 2025) [2026] UGCommC 109 (26 March 2026)

In Tumukwasibwe Broad vs. Tumukwasibwe Evas; CACA No.1438 of 2023 (Feb. 12, 2026) Mugenyi, JA upheld the court's power to sever a joint tenancy upon ascertaining parties' contribution in a suit initiated by plaint and not affidavit evidence in an action for rights enforcement👇🏿.

Case: Tumukwasibwe Broad v Tumukwasibwe Evas (Civil Appeal No: 1438 of 2023) 12th Feb 2026

“ Severance of joint property may become contentious involving extensive evidence and legal arguments…Filing an application using affidavits to enforce severance of jointly owned property, which is not a human right, is misconceived.”

The Court of Appeal has overturned a High Court decision that ordered severance of joint tenancy and partitioning of the property, holding that: -To sever a joint tenancy there is need to ascertain the contribution of each party to the purchase & development of the property.

It’s our belief that if advocates, and other professionals can get legal updates in time it will improve on their preparations and the soundness of their advice - hence the need for legal intelligence.

Guiding that: - Under Section 337 (2) & (4) of the Succession Act CAP 268, applicants only have to show just cause for the Court to exercise its discretion to renew the probate. Case: In the Matter of the Estate of the Late Boniface Muyogoma Byanyima [HCT-05-FD-MA-270-2025]

Reasoning that: - The estate belongs to the beneficiaries and not the executors or administrators. - The spirit of the law on apps for renewal of grants of probate or letters of administration of estates requires court to consider the best interests of the beneficiaries.

The High Court, sitting at Mbarara, has declined to grant renewal of letters of probate, holding that: - Where ALL the beneficiaries of a deceased’s estate are opposed to an application for renewal of letters of probate or administration, the Court ought to reject the renewal.

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