FIRM BRIEFINGS INTERNATIONAL FIRMS Other highlights had Sasha Singh and Le Grange assisting Sasol New
Energy on corporate, project development and energy purchase matters in Mozambique while Le Grange and John Ferraz were advising the Republic of Mozambique Pipeline Investment Company on its gas transportation agreements and project financing. The firm won man- dates from Boss Mining, for infrastructure upgrades in the DRC, and Group Five, for project development in Mozambique and Ghana. Andrew van Niekerk was also kept busy by Axmin on a $400 million
project in the Central African Repubic. A final large deal saw the firm advise the Development Bank of Southern Africa on a $160 million fi- nancing of a 320MW power transmission network in Tanzania.
Eversheds
2012 Firm Overview Active jurisdictions
Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Republic of), Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Highlight clients
Emerging Capital Partners, Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), Total, Oryx Oil & Gas
Key offices London, Paris
Most active disciplines Disputes, corporate, finance, EPC, regulatory and compliance, tax
Law capability English, French, Spanish
Key partners Howard Barrie, Boris Martor, David Sellers
Eversheds handled some impressive mandates in the mining and metals sector in 2012 and received at least one very significant instruction for a gas-to-power plant from a West African government. It is traditionally strong in Francophone Africa but in 2011 Howard Barrie, former head of project finance and chair of the Africa group at SNR Denton, joined the London office and has since developed the Anglophone Africa ca- pacity. A client recommends Boris Martor in Francophone West Africa mat-
ters. “I regard them very highly. They are very good in terms of the service they provided and responsive to our needs”. Clients add that the firm “has a very good network” and praise the team for its handling of “complex agreements”, “monitoring the performance of transactions” and “dealing with local banks and advising on valuations”. A client ac- tive in East Africa says Barrie is “our first port of call”. “The level of detail they give is superior to other firms,” say clients, also praising “the speed at which responses come and the knowledge of the business en- vironment”. A client in the renewables sector is effusive about Eversheds: “They
give us everything, and that is saying a lot because there a lot of partic- ulars in renewables legalities.” The firm has an informal local network throughout Africa, and while it recently dissolved its formal alliance with Routledge Modise in South Africa it has won recent clients in in- stitutions such as the East Africa Development Bank (EADB).
Matters In disputes, David Sellers was representing a client in a dispute over a power project in West Africa. The case has been handled entirely in French and under local law. On the corporate side, the firm was assisting First Uranium Corpo-
ration on a $400 million sale of shares in Ezulwini Mining Company to AngloGold Ashanti and Gold One International, and Wits Gold
and Pan-African Resources on the 100% acquisition of the Evander gold mine. Boris Martor was busy in the gold and oil and gas sectors in West
Africa and South Africa, while in Ghana he acted for the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) on financing for a public-private partnership (PPP) road concession project. Howard Barrie was also kept busy by the East African Development Bank (EADB) on infrastructure financings.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
2012 Firm Overview Active jurisdictions
Angola, Cameroon, Chad, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia
Highlight clients BG Group, Chevron, Total, Petrofac, Xstrata
Key offices London, Paris, Amsterdam, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, New York
Most active disciplines
ADR, international arbitration, litigation, equity and debt capital markets, commercial contracts, M&A and corporate, private equity and funds, sovereign states, banking, project finance (infrastructure, energy), competition, employment, environmental, IP, land, compliance, tax
Key sectors Mining and metals, oil and gas, power, renewable energy, defence
Law capability UK, French, Spanish, US, South African
Key partners
Shawn der Kinderen, Constantine Partasides, Geoffrey Peters, Alan Rae Smith, Graham Watson
Freshfields gets especially strong reviews for corporate work in the oil and gas sector thanks largely to partners Graham Watson and Geoffrey Peters, while its world class arbitration team has also been handling a number of high profile Africa cases. Alan Rae Smith, who joined from Allen & Overy, heads up the firm’s project finance arm. A UK oil and gas client who works in West Africa says: “We were
very pleased with the quality of advice and responsiveness and the abil- ity to work within a short timeframe.” Rae Smith “is right up there as one of the best people I would recommend, literally outstanding in terms of his technical knowledge but also the way he and his people integrated with our team” says the client. An upstream client says the firm “is capable of doing anything we need on these products and rec- ommends Geoffrey Peters as having “the best handle on drafting and negotiating upstream documents”. Clients reserve high praise for the firm’s tax team. The firm was also one of the founders of the ILFA in 2006 and has
recently been working with the Botswana government on its environ- mental legislation, the Ghana government in relation to its involvement in the Jubilee oil field and Mauritania government in drafting a new Mining Code.
Matters Constantine Partasides was representing Esso Exploration and Produc- tion Nigeria and ExxonMobil Nigeria in commercial arbitration on a successful $2 billion claim against the NNPC over tax and royalties pay- ments, among other matters. The ruling was being fought in Nigeria. Partasides also acted for the government of Kenya in a series of UNCI- TRAL arbitrations. Georgios Petrochilos was representing the South African Department of Mineral Resources in domestic litigation over ex- propriation rights and Chris Pugh was acting for a consortium of oil companies in commercial arbitration over contractual matters in Nigeria.
ENERGY & INFRASTRUCTURE | SUB SAHARAN AFRICA 2013 15
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92