Anjarwalla & Khanna

Lack of documentation, digitisation and trust is a significant challenge for anyone hoping to exploit the significant opportunities in African Real Estate. Anyone who succeeds will need to adopt the right policies, structures and tools to unlock the vast potential this sector offers.

A rapidly expanding, wealthier middle class is driving urbanisation and the demand for homes, shopping centres and retail units. ALN is trusted by clients to deliver the right advice on large, complex, multi-use developments from start to finish; including advice relating to tax, equity structuring, construction and ancillary infrastructure development, debt financing, conveyancing, operation and management.

ALN encompasses diverse expertise enabling us to advise on some of the largest and most complex developments in Africa. We understand that real estate is an inherently local business − and we have strong local knowledge. Our clients benefit from our deep experience in orchestrating complex projects in Africa, including documentation, negotiations, legal and regulatory issues and, if necessary, litigation.

Africa’s business landscape is changing at pace. Multinational corporations and international investors need to adapt to this new world and work with an ‘on the ground’ legal partner who understands the inherent risks and opportunities relevant to each jurisdiction.

Africa can be a challenging region to execute successful acquisitions and investments. Understanding that each country is different in terms of operating environment, regulatory framework and business culture is key to that. Our experience and our ability to work across borders and project manage multi-jurisdictional issues on deals mean that we work with clients to provide clear and concise guidance on how to successfully navigate the waters.

We live in Africa and know how it works. ALN has worked on extraordinary, continent-shaping transactions across multiple industries and our clients benefit from an invaluable combination of Africa-wide insights and local knowledge. We offer innovative and practical solutions to all aspects of complex domestic and cross-border corporate transactions, drawing on the unmatched depth of expertise across other supporting areas, including tax, competition and forensics.

Principal Areas of Practice:

• Private Equity and Venture Capital
• Private M&A
• Public Takeovers
• Joint Ventures and Strategic Alliances
• Corporate Restructurings and Distressed Sales
• Privatisations
• Corporate Governance and Regulatory Compliance

Effective and efficient dispute resolution will remain a core aspect of doing business in Africa in coming years; and ever-evolving regulatory regimes mean that organisations need forward-thinking, expert guidance to overcome such challenges.

We represent clients in all stages of dispute resolution, including commercial litigation, cross border cases and international arbitration. Members of our dispute resolution teams have represented local and international clients before local and regional courts, regulatory bodies, and international arbitration tribunals. We ensure swift response times and tailor our advice for commercially sensible and pragmatic outcomes without compromising on the excellent quality of our work.

We approach matters holistically by working in multidisciplinary teams covering corporate M&A, real estate, banking and finance, projects and infrastructure, competition, tax and employment. Specifically, our practice is bolstered by our Forensics, Risk & Compliance team, which gives us the ability to provide seamless end-to-end support in connection with white-collar and regulatory issues. Our approach transcends traditional practice areas and silos in order to address the most complex issues in a client-centric manner. This gives our clients the unique opportunity to access a one-stop shop for all their legal needs.

We focus on the commercial objectives of the clients’ matters, which is often more important to them than legal issues and technicalities. We are increasingly involved with crisis and project management of matters across Africa, providing practical and sophisticated business solutions that help our clients achieve their important goals.

Our lawyers are flexible and not tied to one set of laws but consider the long term interests of our clients and how a matter may impact several countries. ALN firms provide seamless, cross-border support across the African continent. Our unique strength is our ability to understand the local context and to use our strong networks to navigate the regulatory landscape and provide commercial solutions to complex legal problems. Having ALN offices in all the key African jurisdictions, we understand, at a granular level, both the domestic and regional markets across the continent and can therefore tailor our services in ways that are suitably adapted to meet our client’s main objectives. We regularly advise both local and international clients on cross-border dispute matters, including multinationals, private equity, non-profit organisations and high net worth individuals.

Our team consists of a diverse array of practitioners with both local and international qualifications. They understand the relevant local, regional, and international context and are trained to analyse complicated legal, regulatory, compliance, and tax issues to deliver pragmatic and commercial advice that reduces risk for our clients.

We are able to identify issues early before legal action is taken and provide proactive solutions by putting together a multi-disciplinary team, which can tackle these issues. We are constantly responding to clients’ feedback in order to innovate and have expanded into novel practice areas by leveraging on market knowledge to attain efficiencies for our clients.

Whether you are hiring, retaining, transferring or terminating employees, the navigation of the unique legal complexities of each jurisdiction across Africa requires advisers with experience and the right expertise.

ALN’s multi-jurisdictional know-how on employment issues ranges from everyday business matters to complex employee share ownership schemes and options plans. We advise business enterprises, boards and company management teams on employment contracts and staff policy handbooks, right sizing and restructuring, labour relations and trade unions, employee transfer, employee benefits and issues of recruitment, retention and termination.  Our ability to guide clients through the complexities of employment issues in cross-border M&A transactions in an effective way is a key part of what we do.

At a time where the way employees work has been entirely disrupted, ALN lawyers provide invaluable understanding and guidance for organisations as they navigate the important challenges of remote and flexible working, as well as mental health issues.

As competition for the best talent increases, retention becomes increasingly important. ALN offers commercially focused advice on employment incentives and retention packages such as salary structures, share plans, medical and life cover and pensions, among other benefits, ensuring that when you have the right people, you keep them.

Principal Areas of Practice:

• Disciplinary proceedings and termination processes
• Due diligence and strategic planning
• Employee share options and other incentive schemes (ESOPs)
• Employment law contracts, policies and compliance
• Forensics and investigations
• Immigration
• Labour relations, collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) and trade union engagement
• Redundancies and transfer of employees
• Training

The infringement of intellectual property rights and counterfeiting are significant challenges within African countries. Registering and protecting its IP in each and every relevant country on the continent is key for every business, and requires specialist advice and knowledge.

ALN understands the complexities of creating, exploiting and enforcing intellectual property rights in Africa’s rapidly growing domestic and regional markets. We provide support to our Corporate M&A colleagues in connection with providing appropriate due diligence services and advice on key IP issues on any M&A transaction in any market.

Our lawyers work hard to protect and promote clients’ ideas, inventions and trademarks, including anti-counterfeit measures and brand protection, because we understand that intellectual property is an invaluable company asset.

Principal Areas of Practice:

• Anti-counterfeit procedures
• Copyright
• Disputes
• Distribution agreements
• Franchising deals
• Industrial designs and utility models
• Patents
• Plant breeders’ rights
• Sponsorship agreements
• Trademark licensing