With over 600 specialist practitioners, ENS is Africa’s largest law firm and has the capacity to deliver on your business requirements across all major industries and the African continent. We are able to leverage our resources to deliver legal solutions that suit your pricing preferences and timeframes.
Over many years, ENS has developed a large knowledge base of resources and a deep understanding of local nuances and ways of doing business. We have practical experience working on the ground and direct access to high-end, professional contacts across the continent, assuring you of consistent quality and world-class service. We have practitioners who are qualified to practise English law and French law and we have extensive experience in the legal codes of OHADA used in West and Central Africa.
ENS is recognised by top ranking agencies such as Chambers Global Guide, Legal 500 EMEA Guide, IFLR1000 Financial and Corporate Guide and International Tax Review’s World Tax Guide, as well as by the African Legal Awards, for achieving consistently high standards when working on the continent.
We will work to find innovative solutions to ensure you achieve your commercial goals, whether it be successfully executing a strategy, maintaining a competitive edge or defending your position. Our aim is to deliver in the manner that best suits your business requirements, preferences and pricing structures. We can advise you directly, or work closely with your in-house legal teams.
With more than 200 years’ experience, ENS has significant expertise across the breadth of commercial areas and covering the African continent. We are committed to creating enduring client relationships, which are founded in a values-driven culture, and to providing you with to-the-point, jargon-free advice. We harness our deep specialist expertise in areas relevant to the project and at the correct level. This enables us to tailor-make solutions for you, with the desired turnaround times and cost efficiencies.
ENSafrica’s dedicated corporate commercial team is the largest in Africa and services leading clients across the full spectrum of business mergers and major deals on the continent.
We have the capacity to work simultaneously on many substantial M&A deals, in addition to medium and small transactions.
Our key differentiator is our deep expertise and extensive experience in advising on the legal aspects of doing business in Africa, through our in-depth knowledge of the complexities and nuances of the legal and regulatory frameworks in each country, and across borders.
We have the unique advantage, as part of Africa’s largest law firm, of being able to harness the expertise of more than 600 practitioners throughout the continent. ENSafrica has a significant breadth and depth of experience and specialist expertise that spans all commercial areas of law, tax, forensics and IP.
As such, we regularly partner with specialists across the firm, meaning that we are able to assist with all aspects of all matters across all sectors in all African jurisdictions, ensuring that your legal requirements are handled quickly and seamlessly.
By adding financial, tax, competition, regulatory and employment law expertise to our offering, we have become known for our value-generating role in corporate restructuring and commercial contracts in industries as varied as mining, energy, retail and telecommunications.
Our wide range of clients from the public and private sectors includes large listed companies, multinational corporations, international agencies, state-owned enterprises, government departments and non-governmental organisations.
We provide a broad range of corporate commercial and transactional services, including:
ENSafrica’s large dispute resolution team has extensive experience in advising local and international corporations, financial institutions, governments and regulatory bodies in respect of a wide range of disputes across the African continent that require proactive and effective solutions.
Our dedicated team focuses on dispute avoidance and risk management, with an emphasis on early assessment of the matter and a careful consideration of all aspects before taking action, in order to ensure that we adopt the right strategy to meet your expectations. This means that counsel and advice is obtained before any litigation process is considered.
Our key differentiator is that we have represented numerous clients in prominent, ground-breaking litigation, as well as in cross-border litigation. These high-profile market firsts have involved very complex aspects that are without precedent. By way of example, we have advised and represented clients in relation to every class action in South Africa to date.
Although the matters we deal with vary in size, complexity and risk profile, we are primarily recognised as lead attorneys in large and complex matters.
We have the unique advantage, as part of Africa’s largest law firm, of being able to harness the expertise of more than 600 practitioners throughout the continent. ENSafrica has a significant breadth and depth of experience and specialist expertise that spans all commercial areas of law, tax, forensics and IP.
As such, we regularly partner with specialists across the firm, meaning that we are able to assist with all aspects of all matters across all sectors in all African jurisdictions, ensuring that your legal requirements are handled quickly and seamlessly.
We act in, and advise on, all aspects of commercial litigation and dispute resolution, both before and after the start of any litigation process, including:
We advise extensively on issues and disputes throughout Africa in a variety of areas, including:
ENSafrica is Africa’s largest law firm, with over 600 specialist practitioners, including more than 50 employment lawyers, giving us the capacity and depth to handle numerous complex instructions simultaneously.
We are a band 1 Chambers Global and tier 1 Legal 500 employment law practice. We have twice been named Employment Team of the Year at the African Legal Awards and we were legal advisors for the DealMakers 2020 B-BBEE Deal of the Year.
We have practical employment law experience working on the ground throughout Africa, with direct access to high-end, professional contacts across the many jurisdictions on the continent, assuring you of consistent quality and world-class service. We provide practical, business savvy solutions that are tailor-made for your unique requirements and pricing preferences.
For each of our clients, we put together a specific, unique team of senior and junior lawyers who each have deep specialist expertise in employment law. They work together at the relevant level, ensuring fast turnaround times and appropriate costing.
We offer you the choice of using external or our own internal counsel. This limits time and costs, and avoids duplication of work.
We provide regular newsletters, training and updates to provide ongoing support for your business and to empower you in your decision-making.
ENSafrica’s dedicated immigration team has extensive experience in providing the full spectrum of immigration and civic services advice and practical assistance to a wide range of business and personal clients, both locally and internationally.
As a result of greater global staff mobility amid higher international health, safety and security risks, many countries are enforcing more stringent and complex immigration policies for businesses, and therefore risk management and legal compliance are more crucial than ever. However, the law governing immigration differs substantially from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, making compliance an administrative nightmare.
While complying with immigration regulations in all the countries in which you operate can be confusing and complicated, non-compliance often results in severe penalties and even criminal sanction, impacting your business and the lives of your employees, causing damage to your reputation, delays, loss of productivity and revenue, as well as investigations by other enforcement agencies and the risk of future migration difficulties for all employees of your company.
We are able to help you plan your expatriate employment strategies across Africa, ensuring compliance and mitigating risk, so that you can continue to employ foreign nationals, run a successful global mobility programme and meet your commercial objectives.
We actively lobby for immigration reform by preparing representations to the South African Department of Home Affairs on new and proposed legislative changes.
ENSafrica is recognised by top ranking agencies for achieving consistently high standards when working on the continent.
Our key differentiator is that, as Africa’s largest law firm with over 600 specialist practitioners, ENSafrica has the capacity to deliver on your business requirements across all major industries and the continent. We are able to leverage our resources to suit your pricing preferences and deliver within your timeframes.
Our firm’s scale and depth means that we can, at a very early stage, identify and red flag a wide spectrum of legal, employment and tax risks and challenges facing you and your business before you encounter them, enabling us to offer solutions which stretch beyond immigration law alone.
We also offer visa assistance to personal clients. South Africa is an attractive lifestyle destination for retirees and is very accessible due to the low financial threshold needed to apply for retired persons’ visas. South Africa offers well-established expatriate communities, English as a main language, favourable exchange rates, a modern economy, a high standard but low cost of living, warm weather, high quality housing, excellent schools and universities, and easy access to tourism destinations. The country is in a similar time zone to Europe, the Middle East and the United Kingdom, and its medical facilities are among the best in the world, but much cheaper and with very short waiting times.
We also assist high net worth individuals with estate planning and trusts.
We provide the full spectrum of immigration advice, including:
ENSafrica’s dedicated insolvency, restructuring and business rescue team focuses on minimising loss, maximising returns and assisting clients throughout Africa to proactively manage financial risk and exposure.
When insolvency is inevitable, we have the expertise to develop and implement effective recovery strategies for viable business activities, and to maximise returns for creditors.
As a result, we have acted in many complex cross-border insolvencies and restructurings, and have been called in to assist in most major corporate collapses and restructurings in Africa.
We are at the cutting edge of developing insolvency and business rescue law in Africa, and have been involved in the most prestigious and important matters since the introduction of business rescue, playing a significant role in procuring successful results in this regard.
Our key differentiator is that we have the unique advantage, as part of Africa’s largest law firm, of being able to harness the expertise of more than 600 practitioners throughout the continent. ENSafrica has a significant breadth and depth of experience and specialist expertise that spans all commercial areas of law, tax, forensics and IP.
As such, we regularly partner with specialists across the firm, meaning that we are able to assist with all aspects of all matters across all sectors in all African jurisdictions, ensuring that your legal requirements are handled quickly and seamlessly.
We offer you the full scope of insolvency and business rescue services, including:
Working together across Africa, our dedicated insurance practice group delivers an all-round, cost-effective service to our clients, who include leading African and international insurance companies, Lloyd’s syndicates, local and international brokers and other intermediaries, as well as a variety of policyholders.
Our key differentiator is that our offering is holistic. It covers all aspects of insurance law, against the backdrop of a substantial depth of specialised expertise and experience, extending across claims and disputes, regulatory, due diligence, forensic services, corporate and M&A transactions, financial services and tax. We have the ability to do insurance work both throughout Africa and in-country.
ENSafrica is recognised by top ranking agencies for achieving consistently high standards when working on the continent.
As Africa’s largest law firm with over 600 specialist practitioners, ENSafrica has the capacity to deliver on your business requirements across all major industries and the continent. We are able to leverage our resources to suit your pricing preferences and deliver within your timeframes.
what we offer
Our services cover all aspects of insurance law, including:
Claims, disputes and coverage
We offer coverage advice, as well as guidance on and assistance with the claims process and any disputes across all insurance business lines:
Regulatory
Corporate
A world-class IP team with a real African footprint, providing business savvy expertise in a cost-effective manner.
ENSafrica’s IP team is recognised worldwide as a leader in its field in Africa and our practitioners are consistently ranked as experts.
ENSafrica is recognised by top ranking agencies for achieving consistently high standards when working on the African continent. Our most recent accolades are the African IP Team of the Year Award at the 2020 African Legal Awards (for the third time) and the South African Trademark Firm of the Year Award at the 2020 Global IP Awards, presented by prestigious IP publications World Trademark Review (WTR) and IAM.
We are business savvy and recognise that IP does not involve merely registering, maintaining and enforcing IP rights; rather, it is a key driver of a business’s asset value, growth and sustainability. Our focus on collaborating with you to create valuable intellectual property assets to drive your commercial successes is what sets us apart from our competitors. We work hard to obtain a deep understanding of your business and objectives so that we can help you to build your IP assets and create value and growth in your business.
We cover the full spectrum of non-contentious and contentious IP law and have a proven track record in high value, complex work covering multiple jurisdictions in Africa.
One of our key differentiators is that we have a real African footprint, with offices across the continent and on-the-ground knowledge of local legislation, procedures and practices.
In African jurisdictions where we do not have offices, we use a well-established network of carefully chosen IP specialist associates who ascribe to our own client-centric service delivery approach, ensuring consistent quality and timeous delivery.
We are able to offer a co-ordinated, consolidated service for IP projects covering multiple jurisdictions and we pride ourselves on providing you with value by streamlining processes and creating efficiencies.
One of the many benefits is that, no matter how many countries your project spans, you can always interact with a single point of contact.
Our approach is pragmatic and business-focused. We assist in establishing the role of your IP in commercial engagements by gaining a full understanding of the nature of the IP assets that you create and own. We also help you plan how best to protect, enhance and exploit your valuable IP assets.
Our commercial IP offering is unrivalled in Africa and works in tandem with our IP prosecution and litigation teams. It is the largest and fastest growing specialist IP group on the continent.
We are cost-effective; offering world class services with excellent turnaround times at very competitive rates. We are able to cut out the middle man in the countries where we have offices and we have negotiated substantially discounted rates with our network of agents in countries where we don’t.
Our attorneys are all specialists in a particular area of IP law, resulting in efficiencies and lower costs. We offer a competitive pricing model, as well as substantially discounted packages on multi-jurisdictional filings. For time-based work, we have leveraged teams, ensuring that the work is done at the correct level, resulting in favourable rates.
We also offer a variety of complimentary value-added services, including a watch service, gap analyses, client training, monthly newsletters, seminars, data analytics and online access for you to your portfolio via our IP management database.
As Africa’s largest law firm with over 600 specialist practitioners, ENSafrica has the capacity to deliver on your business requirements across all major industries and the continent. We are able to leverage our resources to suit your pricing preferences and deliver within your timeframes.
We provide the full spectrum of specialist contentious and non-contentious IP advice across Africa, including:
Property transactions in Africa and beyond have become increasingly complex and advanced as a result of changes in legislation, multi-party foreign investment and cross-border sales and purchases.
ENSafrica’s dedicated property and real estate team is able to respond effectively to these challenges due to our extensive experience in advising on property developments and projects, including resort building, land restitution claims, mining villages, oil, energy projects, water projects, student accommodation and contractual issues.
Several of our lawyers have worked together as a team for more than 15 years and our clients, many of whom are long-standing, recognise that we are dedicated to providing practical and commercial advice which is always solution-driven.
We handle a wide variety of real estate transactions and our strong track record of working on some of the most high-profile and innovative real estate matters allows us to bring solutions that add value at all stages of property investments and development transactions.
Our clients represent a broad range of industries, including the public and private sector, energy and natural resources, hospitality and leisure, property developers, banks and other financial services.
Our key differentiator is that we have the unique advantage, as part of Africa’s largest law firm, of being able to harness the expertise of more than 600 practitioners throughout the continent. ENSafrica has a significant breadth and depth of experience and specialist expertise that spans all commercial areas of law, tax, forensics and IP.
As such, we regularly partner with specialists across the firm, meaning that we are able to assist with all aspects of all matters across all sectors in all African jurisdictions, ensuring that your legal requirements are handled quickly and seamlessly.
ENSafrica’s property and real estate team advises on all aspects of property law, including:
commercial (commercial, industrial, residential and retail projects)
general property law
transactional (immovable and movable property)
