The economy in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to grow.  A handful of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa, it has the world’s greatest population of young people and the number of middle class consumers – estimated to be 350 million – is booming. With such a growing, promising market, comes great…

Landowners in South Africa again are focused on a governmental land reform policy that seeks to prohibit foreign ownership of land in the country.  The government has been publicly discussing the policy for over two years but it is back in the spotlight after President Jacob Zuma announced in last week’s State of the Nation…

Time is running out to renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

If the renewal process is delayed to AGOA’s expiration date of September 30 of this year, it will undermine much of what the legislation has achieved, especially in the apparel sector.

Apparel and footwear companies are the largest supporters of the several hundred…

Recent developments in the European Parliament threaten to make compliance with the future EU conflict minerals regime extremely complicated for companies that require tin, tantalum, tungsten, their ores or gold.

Background

The European Commission was encouraged to propose a European regime which would emulate the US Dodd Frank 1502 legislation in order to discourage the…

In the recently published Abuja Court of Appeal case of Statoil (Nigeria) Limited & Anor v. Federal Inland Revenue Service & Anor ((2014) LPELR-23144(CA)) (“Statoil”) dated 13 June 2014,  the Nigerian court held that a third party had locus standi to challenge an arbitration agreement to which it was not a party.

This…

A new, comprehensive report published by the African Union’s high-level panel on illicit financial flows and the United Nations economic commission for Africa (Uneca) concludes that Africa loses more than $50 billion every year to illicit financial flows (IFFs).  The report, entitled Illicit Financial Flows, represents the first African initiative of its kind, and…

Last week, London-based firm EnergyNet held its “Powering Africa Summit” in Washington.  The Summit, opened by U.S. Secretary of Energy Moniz, attracted project developers, equipment suppliers, financiers, the U.S. Government’s Power Africa team, and African government officials. Unfortunately, due to the African Union Summit that was being held at the same time in Ethiopia, no…