Our Corporate and Commercial Practice Group is devoted to handling all your requirements for solicitors and legal advisory/consultancy services.
Clients looking to raise capital in the financial and capital market turn to us for insightful and sophisticated legal advisory and back-up services and solutions on equity structuring and financing, equity bridge financing, private placements, bonds, initial public offerings, rights issues, mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers, etc. Our lawyers are registered with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) as capital market legal services providers.
Our Probate/Estate Planning & Administration services is available to assist you to achieve the proper planning and orderly management of your affairs and devolution of your assets after your demise. This include helping you to address and minimise or eliminate the impact of inheritance taxation. Our services range include: Apart from helping to put in place the appropriate estate planning legal instruments, we are also available to provide the following additional fiduciary and probate services that the survivors of a deceased estate holder may require: Probate representation Estate administration, including dealing with creditors Contested will litigation Trust administration Legal assistance for executor
We offer high quality legal research into backgrounds of individuals and entities, KYC screenings, property and asset/liability verification and tracing, and all forms of legal due diligence services to meet your need for accurate information on subjects and/or objects concerning which you are involved or contemplating a contractual or legal relationship. Our clients include commercial banks, insurance companies, and numerous foreign companies and investors in the Nigerian economy.
We offer knowledgeable and experienced Legal Advisory Services tailored towards providing creative and effective solutions across a broad range of practice areas including on aspects of Nigerian laws, regulations and practices relating to:
- Banking, Finance and Insurance;
- Aviation;
- Engineering and Construction;
- Concessions & Public Procurement;
- Mergers & Acquisitions;
- Employment and labour relations (including employment in, and practice of regulated professions);
- Contract and enforcement of contract;
- Mining, Energy, and Oil & Gas;
- Shipping & Maritime;
- Telecommunication;
-Capital Market (including Cross Border
- Investment and capital importation/expatriation);
- Property acquisition and protection and enforcement of property rights;
- Technology transfer, acquisition and protection;
- Branding, Brand Protection, and - Intellectual Property rights and obligations;
- Reciprocal enforcement and service of process;
- Tax and tax reliefs (including relief against double taxation);
- Custom and Excise (including import and export rights and enforcement)
Citizenship and Immigration rights, protection and enforcement;
AML/CFT.
Our advisory services include:
- Advising on all aspects of establishing business in Nigeria (incorporation of business entities, processing of business permits and expatriate quota, capital importation and expatriation);
- Providing intensive legal research services and analysis on issues of interest to our clients, and coming up with opinions and recommendations (citing the relevant statutes, case laws and other relevant legal authorities) on such issues for the client’s information, and consideration/action;
- Assisting with negotiations;
- helping with the planning and implementation of the legal framework for compliance with laws and regulations relevant to the business or personal interest of clients.
We offer a full range of legal services for the acquisition, commercialization, protection and enforcement of your intellectual property and assets in the areas of:
- Patents
- Trademarks
- Copyrights
- Brand name and reputation
- Trade secrets
- Data security
- Design rights
We are available to serve your need for legal documentation of all sorts, whether of a contractual or transactional nature or not, and whether simple or complex.
Our legal drafting team is imbued with the competence and experience garnered over many years to provide you with made to measure and airtight drafts of contracts and other documents that cannot be surmounted by the most rigorous legal attack or lawsuit. The experience of the team encompasses not only drafting, but also interpreting transactional and non-transactional documents of a legal nature intended to govern business or any other type of relationships or arrangements. By their creative thinking and top-range drafting skill, our lawyers anticipate from the onset, and are able to either eliminate or limit our clients’ exposure to future liabilities or other inconveniences of a legal nature in their business or other relations and arrangements.
Our services include personalized consultation to discuss your contract or other legal documentation requirements; conducting document or contract review and analysis; editing, proofreading, and re-structuring pre-drafted documents, contracts and agreements; and drafting agreements and contracts that follow the appropriate legal formats that meet the objectives of the parties.
The experience of our legal drafting unit cover:
- Agency and Distribution;
- Consumer Credit
- Commercial Property Development;
- Computer (Hardware, software, technical support and maintenance, Source code deposit, Data protection, etc.) contracts and agreements;
- Employment;
- Franchising;
- Leasing and Hire;
- Merchandising and Sponsorship;
- Pensions Trust;
- Private Equity Transactions;
- International Joint Ventures;
- Internet (Domain name transfer, website development, communications use, content licensing, online subscription, supply of services terms, etc.) contracts and agreements;
- Sport;
- Outsourcing;
- Media and Entertainment;
- Data Protection;
- Sale of Goods;
Our Licensing & Regulatory Compliance services assists clients engaged in businesses subject to statutory licensing and regulatory control to be alive to and be continuously compliant with the requirements/conditions of their charter and existence. Our understanding of company and industry regulations as well as our deep knowledge of and long-standing involvement and interactions with regulators such as the C.B.N., NAICOM, NAFDAC, SEC, NSE, NERCOM, Mining Cadastral Office, FAAN, NCAO, NCC, NCAA, NAMA etcetera, concerned with the licensing and oversight supervision of businesses such as Banking, Insurance, Capital Markets, Telecommunication, Mining, Pharmaceuticals, Aviation, Electric Power generation and distribution, etcetera, are readily available to serve the needs of our existing clients operating or prospective clients intending to operate in any of these industries.
Our range of services in this area cover:
Licensing – We assist in putting together the application package, and to process your licensing applications up to successful completion.
Compliance – We assist you to put in place and monitor the effectiveness of your process for complying with the requirements of your regulated business, including timely rendition of required reports and returns to your legal regulator.
Complaints– We assist you to respond and address complaints from your regulators, including ensuring legal representation for you at regulatory proceedings.
Our Tax services advise our clients on legal aspects of tax governance and administration, and assist them to meet their legal responsibilities for compliance.
Our services include:
- Advising clients on legal aspects of personal, corporate and inheritance tax planning;
- Advising clients regarding their tax obligations and entitlement to tax relief under Nigerian law;
- Assistance with registration with relevant tax authorities
- Assistance in preparation and filling of returns
- Assistance in tax audits and other investigations by tax or custom authorities
- Assistance with management of non-compliance risks
- Assistance with the drafting of appeals to tax authorities in relation to tax and contributions assessment notifications
- Assistance in preparation of the legal aspects of the set of documents and follow-up procedures for obtaining the Nigerian Tax residence certificate
- Drafting/reviewing secondment agreements
- Tax compliance, including assistance with tax liability payment transfers
- Advising on the legal aspects of the tax implication of cross border projects, chain supply transaction, contracting structures and optimisation.