OHADA business law and corporate finance law

The Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) is an international uniform business law system in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) comprising Seventeen (17) member states including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros Islands, Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea-Conakry, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Senegal, Tchad, and Togo. The organisation was created by a Treaty in 1993 (Port Louis, Mauritius) and revised in Quebec in 2008.

Apart of the English-speaking part of Cameroon, all member states of the OHADA are continental civil law countries which applied the Code civil and Code de commerce prior to the entry into force of the OHADA legal framework. The principal objective of the organisation is to achieve through uniform transnational substantive laws legal and judicial security for businesses and private investors. At the summit of the OHADA judicial system is the Common Court of Justice & Arbitration (CCJA) which serves both as an arbitral body and the supreme judicial body in matters of business law, thus ensuring a consistent and uniform application and interpretation of harmonised rules.

Its uniform laws regulate general commercial law, commercial companies and economic interest groups, simplified debt recovery, enforcement of judgments, arbitration, mediation, cooperative societies, security interests law, carriage of goods by road, accounting law, and insolvency (bankruptcies) & restructuring. There are also various complementary rules, especially those regulating the CCJA

Dayspring Law Firm is specialised in OHADA business law and provides legal assistance to float commercial companies (formation, incorporation, and registration). We focus on providing legal advice to business owners on issues affecting businesses, such as taxation, business transactions, and IP and assisting and advising businesses on how to establish their company’s structure, policies, objectives, and procedures for their business operations. We also provide corporate legal services in local business operations, compliance, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, local labour and employment regulations, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, corporate transformation, drafting shareholder agreements, corporate & commercial litigation and dispute resolution, legal audit, due diligence, insolvency, liquidation, commercial operations, etc.

Besides advising clients on the framework of the OHADA business law, our lawyers are corporate finance counsel who help our clients on questions relating to the financing of their businesses. Our lawyers advise clients across different industries and handle a wide range of sophisticated and complex transactions including private placements, venture capital financing, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financing, structuring sound investment and exit strategies, tax planning, corporate tax advantaged structures, seed capital financing, foreign exchange regulation, executive remuneration, asset based lending, financing of corporate acquisitions, distressed corporations & insolvency, building & construction finance, mortgage-backed finance, special purpose vehicles, projects and infrastructure finance, real estate finance, trade, commodities & export finance, mortgage lending, etc. The primary applicable laws are the OHADA business law framework, regional community instruments and a couple of domestic legislation.

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