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Africa

In addition to our offices in Johannesburg, South Africa and Casablanca, Morocco, our Africa Group includes over 150 lawyers from across our network of offices in key hubs across Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas.

Over the past 30 years, our team, together with selected local counsel, has advised clients on numerous large-scale international transactions across the African continent, providing an integrated service for clients doing business in the region. We advise international organisations, investors, banks and African corporations on their business activities across the continent – in the past two years we have advised in 45+ jurisdictions in Africa.

Drawing on both common and civil law capability, our team assists on projects, banking, corporate, litigation and arbitration matters, with particular expertise in the financial, energy, infrastructure, mining, telecoms and technology sectors. From an infrastructure perspective, we act for sponsors, developers, project companies and financiers on all aspects of development, construction operation and maintenance, feedstock supply, offtake and financing of an asset. In addition, we work on mandates across all major product lines, including corporate/M&A, restructuring, general lending, arbitration and disputes.

Clients who are working on deals in Africa need an all-round vision and awareness of the African market. We understand issues from various perspectives and can apply this experience to the advice we provide; anticipating potential problems to save time and money. Our clients can tap into our knowledge of African issues acquired through significant local experience, with the result that our lawyers understand the legal, political, socio-economic, and commercial environments of the different African countries where our clients do business. In addition, we have developed longstanding relationships with local counsel across Africa through direct transactional experience, secondments, training programmes, and know-how initiatives, which in turn gives clients access to high-quality local legal advice as part of a consistent and seamless service.

Our exposure to transactions in each sub-region throughout Africa means that we are familiar with the various intricacies that present themselves on-and off-deal, as well as the legal and regulatory landscape. Our unrivalled experience and market insight means that we know what our clients in this region want and how they like to work.

Countries we cover in Africa:

News and insights

Sugar spilling out of a hessian bag

News: 01 December 2023

Allen & Overy advises investors on their acquisition of Wilmar’s stake in Cosumar

Allen & Overy advised a pool of Moroccan institutional investors, including MAMDA, CIMR and RCAR, and Sucden Group on their acquisition of Wilmar group’s entire stake in Cosumar, representing 30.05%…

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Image of a person sitting on a bridge using a laptop

Publications: 23 November 2023

Podcast: Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 - perspectives part 1

The Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 has the potential to transform trade finance by solving a piece of the puzzle that will permit market participants to ditch paper trade documentation and move…

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Aerial view of solar panels in a field

News: 21 September 2023

Allen & Overy advises African Frontier Capital on a USD30m solar receivables securitisation, in first-of-its-kind deal in Tanzania

Allen & Overy (“A&O”) advised African Frontier Capital (Mauritius) LLC (“AFC”) on a USD30 million solar receivables securitisation in Tanzania.

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Electricity tower

Publications: 27 July 2023

Deregulating South Africa’s electricity market – Where to start? Where to next?

South Africa continues to debate how to deregulate its electricity market to break the market dominance of Eskom, the vertically integrated national electricity giant, and solve the rolling blackouts…

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Awards & accolades

  • Winner of ‘Moroccan Law Firm of the Year’ at the 2023 Chambers Africa awards
  • Africa Mining Deal of the Year 2021 – Tri-K Gold Mine – IJ Global 2022
  • Africa Transport Deal of the Year 2021 – Côte d’Ivoire Port – IJ Global 2022 
  • Renewables Deal of the Year 2021 – Redstone CSP, South Africa – IJ Global 2022
  • Europe and Africa Legal Adviser of the Year 2021 – IJ Global 2022 
  • #1 Legal Adviser for Sub-Saharan Africa 2021 – Dealogic 2022
  • Winner of ‘Africa Oil & Gas Deal of the Year’ at the 2021 IJ Global awards
     

Recognition

Our global coverage

Click on the regions in the map below to find out more about the jurisdictions we cover across the world.

  • Europe
  • Africa
  • Asia Pacific
  • Middle East
  • North America
  • Latin America

In addition to countries where we have offices, we also have a number of International Desks advising clients on large scale international transactions in Europe.

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Global Experts and Markets

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Our Global Experts and Markets bring together lawyers from across Allen & Overy with significant experience of working on deals in key regions and markets – they support our clients with their business needs across any region by mobilising international teams as well as selecting and maintaining our ties with our chosen relationship law firms. As our network of relationship law firms has grown, we have committed to build an enduring bond that will bring value to them, us and ultimately to our clients.