Orrick first in West Africa office moveOrrick has opened an affiliate office in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, making it the first global practice to do...
Orrick has opened an affiliate office in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, making it the first global practice to do so.
The Orrick outpost, trading as Orrick RCI, will provide local support to the firm’s expanding client base with interests in the wider region.
Chairman Mitch Zuklie said in a statement that the firm has “very longstanding and deep ties to Central and Western Africa” and that the new office represents “a small part of the overall momentum in Africa today”.
Orrick’s African work ranges from project finance to regulatory and dispute resolution, especially in the energy and mining sectors. Its client portfolio includes multinationals, such as General Electric and Enel Green Power, as well as a growing number of Chinese investors.
The firm also represents public entities such as the African Development Bank and a number of African states.
Pascal Agboyibor, head of the 50-strong Africa team, is currently advising the Democratic Republic of Congo on the development of the Inga dams, one of the largest hydroelectric projects on the continent.
In September 2014, the firm was instructed, jointly with DLA Piper, in an ICSID case brought by Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz over the expropriation of a mining concession in the Simandou region.
French-speaking Ivory Coast is one of 17 members of the Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA), whose arbitration tribunal is based in Abidjan. The economic capital is also the seat of the African Development Bank, which has recently returned to the country after a temporary move to Tunisia during the Ivorian civil war.
Orrick RCI is staffed full time by two French-qualified lawyers who are operating under legal adviser status, Karamoko Fadiga and Sydney Domoraud-Operi, both with a background in OHADA transactions.
Fadiga has joined from the Ivorian savings and financial markets agency, where he was a director. He was previously with Abidjan law firm FDKA where he specialised in securities, corporate governance and OHADA law.
Domoraud-Operi, a lawyer with the Paris Bar since 2006, was an associate at Freshfields and the now-defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf before joining Orrick in 2010. Since then he has been of counsel in the firm’s energy and infrastructure group in Paris, focusing on OHADA work.
The moves follow the recruitment of another two lawyers as project partners in Orrick’s Africa team. Colin Graham joined from Hogan Lovells in London in September, and Jean-Jacques Essombè – who met Agboyibor when the two were on secondment at the African Development Bank – joined from Heenan Blaikie in Paris the following month.
Heenan Blaikie, the now-defunct Canadian firm, was one of a growing number of international firms responding to the lure of Africa. Former partner and Africa specialist Alexander Brabant moved to DLA Piper two weeks ago.
On the continent itself, global firms have been active mostly in the Maghreb and South Africa, with few venturing in West Africa or the former French colonies, preferring to operate from their Paris bases instead.
In 2012, for instance, Linklaters set up in Johannesburg via an alliance with local firm Webber Wentzel. And last month, Allen & Overy, which already has an office in Casablanca, also opened in Johannesburg.
Meanwhile, in October 2012, Herbert Smith Freehills announced plans to open in Guinea the following year only to call them off 12 months later.
Orrick’s move, however, has not been met with unanimous approval. It has provoked anger at the local Bar, whose president has accused the US firm of circumventing professional conduct rules.
In a letter to the justice secretary, Ivorian Law Society president, batonnier Mamadou Kone expressed “utter astonishment” that the firm would choose to set up in the country using the legal adviser route and called on the secretary to take “corrective measures”.
Legal adviser status merely requires government approval, but recipients are only authorised to carry out non-contentious work and may not appear in court. However, a bilateral agreement between France and the Ivory Coast allows French avocats to appear in Ivorian courts.
The letter, reported in African weekly magazine Jeune Afrique, suggested foreign firms are using the ‘legal adviser’ route to undertake reserved activities while operating outside the supervision of the Ivorian Bar and tax authorities.
Orrick were unavailable for comment at the time of writing.