African law firms are reporting an investigations and compliance boom in their litigation practices that is being driven by increased regulation, anticorruption enforcement, a new focus on governance and compliance, as well as international pressure.
“This is a type of anti-economic colonisation approach to guard against their countries’ economies being controlled or dominated by foreign shareholders,” said Chris Todd, partner at African firm Bowmans. “That’s an area for investors to be acutely aware of red flags, and careful due diligence is needed, for example on the background of the local partner, how they’ve been selected, and why they can’t run their own selection process.”
