FIRM BRIEFINGS INTERNATIONAL FIRMS Allen & Overy Introduction
It may come as no surprise to read that nearly all the practitioners we spoke to have seen an increase of work related to energy and infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past five years and that a mini-trend within this has been the increasing involvement of offices based in the Middle East, Asia and Australia.
Paris and London remain the key legal intersections for Africa projects for advisory, transactional and contentious cases, although there is a significant amount of World Bank and IFC sponsored work, project financing and compliance matters coming out of the US.
We asked international partners to estimate the percentage of their practice dedicated to Sub-Saharan African matters
0 - 19 20 - 39 40 - 59 60 - 79 80 - 99 100
05 10 15 20 % of partners interviewed
Topics of discussion for industry figures in 2012 include South Africa’s renewable energy programme and the national power privatisation process in Nigeria, which both reached milestones in early 2013. Oil and gas finds in East Africa, particularly in Mozambique, also generated numerous transactions, while one striking feature has been the development of megaprojects involving multiple international parties in which, for instance, a mining project is conceived along with a transport infrastructure programme (roads, rail, ports) and its own power generating infrastructure.
Over and above the traditional fossil fuel projects there have been some very notable developments in renewables especially in South Africa and Kenya, with the Lake Turkana Wind Farm, and in terms of ambitious multi- jurisdictional projects, such as the Ruzizi III hydropower dam. On the arbitration side many partners are beginning to speculate about the possible role countries such as South Africa, Mauritius or Rwanda will play as centres for regional disputes where Mauritius and Rwanda, in particular, have made a big push towards positioning themselves as neutral arbitration hubs.
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2012 Firm Overview Active jurisdictions
Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia
Highlight clients
Shell, Dangote Group, Jinchuan, IFC, Ecobank, African Development Bank
Key offices London, Paris, Perth, Dubai, Amsterdam, Beijing, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Casablanca, New York
Law capability English, French, Spanish, US
Key partners
Shaun Beaton, Dominic Morris, Erwan Poisson, Tim Scales, Michael Young
Allen & Overy is recommended for everything related to project finance and banking but also clinched some of 2012’s biggest corporate mandates, such as Shell’s African downstream divestments. The firm works across the continent and acts on all manner of energy and infrastructure trans- actions, particularly in power, renewables and infrastructure. The Paris of- fice has a strong practice in litigation and arbitration. “I am very happy with A&O’s services. We engage Tim Scales’ team in
Paris regularly for Africa projects and we are not disappointed... great depth of team, very good marks on dedication. His team comes highly recommended for complex projects”, says a client. A&O is active with International Lawyers for Africa (ILFA), through
which it has been working to develop the legal sector in Rwanda, and op- erates a rolling secondment programme with the Africa Legal Network (ALN). It works through an informal network of local counsel firms and has its own regional intelligence unit, GLIU, which generates research on developments on the ground.
Matters A&O’s dispute partners Michael Young and Erwan Poisson acted for Dan- gote Group in a number of disputes relating to shareholder rights, corpo- rate governance and land rights and in potential ICSID, UNICITRAL (Nigeria) and investor-state arbitrations. A highlight corporate mandate saw Dominic Morris act for Shell on
its $1 billion divestment from its downstream businesses across 14 African countries. The firm also negotiated oil & gas production sharing agree- ments in Mauritania and helped Jinchuan in its unsolicited bid for copper and cobalt producer Metorex. Tim Scales and Shaun Beaton won instructions from the IFC and
FMO on the expansion of the Takoradi 2 gas-fired power project in Ghana and Lake Turkana Wind Company and Aldwych International on the de- velopment, financing and construction of the 300MW Lake Turkana wind farm in Kenya. Greg Brown also acted for banks on loans and debt capital markets transactions, notably for Tonkolili Iron Ore Project in Sierra Leone.
ENERGY & INFRASTRUCTURE | SUB SAHARAN AFRICA 2013 9
% of practice
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