Finastra International Limited v The CRDB Bank plc
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Commercial Court) |
| Judge | Mr Justice Henshaw |
| Judgment Date | 07 March 2025 |
| Neutral Citation | [2025] EWHC 509 (Comm) |
| Date | 07 March 2025 |
| Year | 2025 |
| Counsel | Lawrence Akka Kc,Fiona Whiteside,Alex Charlton Kc,Edward Meuli |
Neutral Citation Number: [2025] EWHC 509 (Comm)
Case No: CL-2023-000143
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
COMMERCIAL COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Rolls Building, Fetter Lane,
London, EC4A 1NL
Date: 07/03/2025
Before :
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE HENSHAW
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Between:
FINASTRA INTERNATIONAL LIMITED
Claimant
- and -
THE CRDB BANK PLC
Defendant
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Lawrence Akka KC and Fiona Whiteside (instructed by Pinsent Masons LLP) for the
Claimant
Alex Charlton KC and Edward Meuli (instructed by Dentons UK and Middle East LLP) for
the Defendant
Hearing date: 21 February 2025
Draft judgment circulated to parties: 26 February 2025
Approved Judgment
.............................
MR JUSTICE HENSHAW
Approved Judgment
Finastra v CRDB Bank (Permission to Amend)
2
Mr Justice Henshaw:
(A) INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 2
(B) PROCEDURAL HISTORY .................................................................................... 3
(C) THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT ....................................................................... 12
(D) PRINCIPLES......................................................................................................... 16
(E) APPLICATION ..................................................................................................... 17
(F) CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 26
(A) INTRODUCTION
1. The Claimant applies, by notice dated 29 January 2025, for permission to amend its
Particulars of Claim in order to add a significant additional head of claim.
2. The trial of this action is listed for a five-day trial (plus one day of pre-reading)
commencing on 7 April 2025.
3. The Claimant’s claim is for alleged breach of a software licence agreement, and its loss
is currently put in the region of US$23 million. The Claimant provides financial
software to clients, including the Defendant (“CRDB”), a Tanzanian bank. By an
agreement signed on 21 November 2017 (the “November Agreement”), the Claimant
licenced its banking software to CRDB, including FusionBanking Essence (“FBE”).
FBE is CRDB’s core banking system for customer account information and financial
transactions.
4. The Claimant’s current claim alleges that CRDB breached the November Agreement
by granting indirect access to FBE to its trained local agents called “Wakalas”
(“Wakala” being the Swahili word for agent). Wakalas operate in areas of Tanzania
where there are no ATMs or banks available. Wakalas are equipped with a handheld
point of sale card machine (“POS terminal”) on which is loaded an application called
FahariHuduma (the “FH App”). As of 2023 there were 34,627 Wakalas.
5. Prior to its decommissioning in June 2024, a Wakala’s POS terminal connected via a
mobile network to CRDB’s Transaction Management System (“TMS”). TMS
interfaced, in turn, with FBE. The Claimant alleges that TMS was a ‘single point of
access’ for all Wakalas to use FBE, and a breach of the November Agreement which,
it argues, prohibited what the Claimant calls ‘multiplexing’. In this regard, the
Claimant relies on the final sentence of the definition of “Concurrent User” in the
November Agreement, which states:
“A “Concurrent User” licence permits any representative (e.g.
employee, consultant, contractor) of the Client or an Affiliate up
to the cumulative stated number of Concurrent Users to
simultaneously access the specified Software at any one time.
Access to the Software means that the user is logged on to the
Software, regardless of whether the Software is actually
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1 cases
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Finastra International Limited v The CRDB Bank plc
...NABS and are not contested. I shall hear further submissions in the event of any remaining disagreement in that regard. (F) CONCLUSION[2025] EWHC 509 (Comm) Case No: CL-2023-000143 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES KING'S BENCH DIVISION COMMERCIA......