Tanzania

THE website of Tanzania’s CRDB Bank makes much of this being the country’s largest private bank, of its awards for progressive policies and practices and of its good relations with customers. It even advertises itself as “the bank that listens”. With all that energy and hype around a friendly, efficient and profitable profile, it must have been devastating when the high court ordered the bank to pay a massive USD 30m plus interest in damages and lost business opportunities to an unhappy businessman and client.

WHEN Anudo Anudo went to his local police station to sort out all the papers he needed to get married, he could not have guessed that he was about to have his nationality taken away, be made stateless – and then become the unlikely hero of a landmark decision by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.