Dynasty Toppled! Court Hammers Chandarias, Guardian Bank with Sh2.5B Bill in 26-Year Legal Revenge Saga

Industrial tycoons suffer crushing defeat as Court of Appeal vindicates Rajendra Sanghani’s decades-long fight for justice

The mighty Chandaria family and their Guardian Bank have been dealt a crushing financial blow after the Court of Appeal ordered them to cough up a staggering Sh2.5 billion to businessman Rajendra “Raju” Sanghani and his Shivali Investments Limited, marking the end of a bitter 26-year legal saga that has finally caught up with one of Kenya’s most powerful business dynasties.

In a blistering judgment delivered on October 3, 2025, that sent shockwaves through Nairobi’s corporate corridors, Justices Daniel Musinga, Francis Tuiyott, and George Odunga tore apart the Chandarias’ defense and laid bare what they found to be years of stonewalling and unfulfilled obligations in a share purchase deal gone spectacularly wrong.

The appellate bench’s decision represents a stunning reversal of fortune for the illustrious Chandaria clan whose patriarch Dr. Manu Chandaria has built an empire spanning steel, aluminum, plastics and banking across 40 countries and a long-awaited vindication for Sanghani, who has spent more than two decades fighting to recover money he claims was rightfully his.

At the heart of this epic commercial battle lies a seemingly straightforward 1999 transaction that turned into a nightmare.

Shivali Investments and associated companies agreed to sell 200,000 shares in Guilders International Bank Limited to Guardian Bank and a constellation of Chandaria family members—Amit, Hetul, Bhavnish, Nisha, and Mahesh Chandaria—along with their corporate vehicles including Conifers Trading Limited, Chandaria Holdings Limited, Dima Limited, Goldera Limited, and Kevis Investments Limited.

Bhavnish Chandaria, Guardian Bank Executive Director

The purchase price was set at Sh196 million. Sanghani’s companies transferred the shares as agreed. But according to court documents, that’s where the fairy tale ended and the legal warfare began. The sellers claim they never saw a single shilling of the agreed purchase price. The Chandarias and Guardian Bank, meanwhile, dug in their heels, insisting the bank’s assets had been wildly overvalued and they were justified in withholding payment.

What followed was a protracted legal trench war that would outlast most businesses and test the patience of even the most determined litigant. The dispute crawled through the corridors of justice for over twenty years, consuming resources, generating mountains of paperwork, and eventually landing before the nation’s second-highest court for the final showdown.

The Court of Appeal’s ruling pulled no punches. The three-judge bench systematically dismantled the Chandarias’ arguments with surgical precision, finding that Guardian Bank and the family obligors had failed to meet critical contractual deadlines and could not substantiate their counterclaims.

The judges ruled unequivocally that the December 30, 1999 Sale Agreement was the binding contract, not an earlier Memorandum of Understanding that the Chandarias had attempted to rely upon.

This seemingly technical finding had massive financial implications, as it led the court to cancel the High Court’s award of 12 percent annual interest and instead order that interest be calculated at standard court rates from the date the suit was filed—though even at these reduced rates, the total liability balloons to approximately Sh2.5 billion when principal, interest, and costs are tallied.

But the real killer blow came when the appellate judges examined whether the Chandarias had met a crucial December 31, 2001 deadline.

Under the Sale Agreement, Guardian Bank and the Chandaria obligors were required to exhaust all efforts to recover the bank’s loans by that date and formally notify the sellers of any amounts deemed irrecoverable.

The court found they had produced no credible evidence of meeting this obligation. A 2014 report that the buyers tried to introduce was dismissed as irrelevant for determining the loan status as of the 2001 deadline—too little, too late, and beside the point.

The consequence was swift and brutal. The court threw out the Chandarias’ counterclaim for Sh827 million in its entirety.

Their argument that they were owed money because of the sellers’ alleged breaches collapsed like a house of cards when they couldn’t prove the sellers had actually breached any obligations.

The judges did acknowledge one small victory for the defense.

Evidence showed that Sanghani himself had attended a Debt Recovery Committee meeting in June 2000, where Sh6.07 million in previously undisclosed liabilities came to light.

The court deducted this amount from the final award, a minor concession in what was otherwise a total rout.

The ruling now places distinct and onerous obligations on the two groups of appellants.

The Chandaria family obligors—Amit, Hetul, Bhavnish, Nisha, and Mahesh Chandaria, along with their companies Conifers Trading, Chandaria Holdings, Dima Limited, Goldera Limited, and Kevis Investments are jointly and severally liable to pay Shivali Investments and the other sellers the principal sum of Sh196 million plus interest calculated at court rates.

Guardian Bank Limited, meanwhile, has been ordered to release and return all securities that had been provided by the sellers as part of the original transaction, with the exception of four properties whose sales had already been approved by the sellers’ directors.

Adding insult to injury, the Court of Appeal also stuck the Chandarias with the lion’s share of legal costs.

The family obligors must cover three-quarters of the sellers’ legal expenses accumulated over two decades of litigation, while Guardian Bank is liable for the remaining quarter—a tab that industry insiders estimate could run into tens of millions of shillings on its own.

For Rajendra Sanghani, the ruling represents vindication after what must have seemed like an interminable wait for justice.

The businessman, who owns the Real Group of Companies and has been involved in various high-profile commercial disputes over the years, can finally claim victory in a case that has defined much of his business life since the turn of the millennium.

For the Chandaria family, whose business acumen and philanthropic activities have made them household names in Kenya and beyond, the judgment is a rare and very public black eye.

Guardian Bank, founded by the Chandarias and incorporated in 1992, has been a cornerstone of their financial services portfolio.

The bank converted from a finance company to a commercial bank in 1996 and has operated under the family’s stewardship for decades.

The Sh2.5 billion liability—equivalent to the entire shareholders’ equity of Guardian Bank as of recent financial reports—represents a significant financial hit even for a business empire as diversified and substantial as the Chandarias’.

Whether Guardian Bank and the family members will seek to appeal to the Supreme Court remains to be seen, though legal experts note that the Court of Appeal’s detailed and methodical reasoning may make further appeals an uphill battle.

What is certain is that this landmark judgment will reverberate through Kenya’s banking and corporate sectors for years to come, serving as a stark reminder that even the most powerful business dynasties are not above the law, and that contractual obligations, no matter how old, eventually come due—with interest.