The long-running battle between Standard Chartered Bank and its 629 former employees has entered yet another chapter, with the lender now pushing the High Court to suspend a tribunal ruling that could cost it billions. It’s a messy, exhausting saga that has dragged on for 17 years—moving through the Retirement Benefits Tribunal all the way up to the Supreme Court. At the heart of this latest pivot is a Sh709 million bill for legal costs that the bank insists was calculated using unconstitutional rules.
During Tuesday’s proceedings, the bank’s legal team argued that the regulations used to compute these costs—stemming from a 2000 legal notice—were gazetted by a former Finance Minister rather than the Chief Justice. “Nowhere does the Minister of Finance have the power to prescribe the cost of a retirement benefits dispute,” senior lawyer Chacha Odera stated. It feels a bit like a desperate reach for a technicality, honestly, especially considering the bank has already exhausted almost every other avenue available.
On the other side of the courtroom, the Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) didn’t mince words. They framed the bank’s latest move as a “collateral attack” on a court verdict that is meant to protect elderly retirees. The atmosphere in the room was tense; you could almost hear the low hum of the air conditioning unit struggling against the afternoon heat. The RBA maintains that the bank is only suddenly concerned about constitutional rules because they finally ran out of legal winning streaks.
This isn’t just about the Sh709 million in costs, though. The underlying dispute involves a massive pension claim that once hit Sh30 billion, though it has since settled around the Sh7 billion mark. The bank’s East Africa Head of Legal, Dr. Davidson Mwaisaka, argued in his affidavit that the tribunal allowed the Sh709 million demand without even a proper hearing. He claims that if the money is paid out, recovering it would be an impossible task should the bank eventually win—or maybe not? The logic feels circular at best.
It’s worth remembering that this involves real people—629 of them, many of whom retired decades ago. Some left through voluntary early retirement back in 1994, while others have been waiting for these lump sums for what feels like a lifetime. The bank insists that many of these claimants had already received their dues, but the tribunal saw things very differently, ruling that the bank had essentially pocketed money that belonged to the workers.
The Court of Appeal has already shut down the bank’s previous attempts to overturn the payouts, citing no evidence of unfair treatment. Yet, the legal machinery keeps grinding forward. The bank remains convinced that the tribunal overstretched its authority, even as the retirees wait to see if they will ever actually see the money.
It’s a cycle of filings, counter-filings, and endless litigation that leaves one wondering if a resolution is truly possible—or if this is just how it ends now.