Webber Wentzel is one of the leading corporate law firms on the African Continent.
Our strategy is to help our clients wherever they do business in Africa.
As our continent’s economies develop and provide opportunities for investment and growth, we respond to our clients' growing need for on-the-ground legal experience and know-how. Accordingly, we have developed our offering to support our clients’ business operations in Africa through a combination of our experience and expertise across a broad range of industries.
We are a member of ALN, a group of leading law firms in 11 African countries, the largest and only group of its kind on the African Continent.
The ALN group includes top-ranked law firms in Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Our combined coverage means that we have over 520 lawyers across 13 major African cities. The size of the group and its multi-lateral nature distinguish it from any network, association or international law firm with offices in African countries. More importantly, this tie-up creates a pan-African platform for us to work together with our colleagues on the continent on an integrated basis on multi-jurisdictional projects.
In countries where ALN has a presence and indeed across the continent, we are able to offer clients access to our respective practice area expertise; jurisdiction and language skills; industry knowledge and real on-the- ground experience. We achieve this through a combination of factors including:
- our leading market reputation in all relevant legal practice areas;
- our extensive knowledge and understanding of all relevant industry sectors;
- our relationships with the strongest commercial law firms in Africa through ALN and our network of ‘best friend’ law firms;
- our ability to select the appropriate firm in each jurisdiction to suit the nature of the transaction;
- our on-the-ground experience conducting deals on the African continent;
- our ability to offer one point of contact to handle transactions over multiple jurisdictions;
- our ability to advise on South African law, English law, civil law and the Uniform Laws of the OHADA region; and
- our ability to negotiate deals and draft documentation in French and Portuguese.
Local Knowledge
Our Africa specialists have experience and an intimate understanding of the complexities of doing business on the African continent.
- Many of our team come from, or have worked in, Africa for many years and understand how business operates in these countries.
- We travel regularly and extensively on the continent and have developed networks of local business contacts.
- Through our local knowledge, we understand the cultural and political risks that affect business and strive to reduce or eliminate those risks.
- We spend a considerable amount of time and effort cultivating our relationships with the leading law firms in Africa to best understand these firms’ strengths and capabilities.
- We have a number of ‘best friend’ firms in each jurisdiction to enable us to select the appropriate firm in each country to suit the demands of the transaction.
- We enjoy close relationships with regulators in many countries and are thus able to steer our clients through the challenges of an investment in these regulated environments.
- Within ALN, our practice groups operate on a cross-border basis ensuring that we share our know-how and experience for the benefit of our clients.
As a law firm based in Africa we have easy access to our clients and their markets and are considered legal counterparts by fellow African law firms with whom we work in partnership. This distinguishes us from competitor law firms, which service the African market from Europe or the US without a physical presence in Africa.
We are also able to offer billing rates at a very competitive level in comparison with these European and US competitors, without compromising on quality or duplicating efforts or fees.
Industries
Understanding our clients' business and the environment in which they operate is key to our strategy of building close relationships and fostering partnerships with clients.
This, together with developing industry knowledge, is crucial to our strategy, and has afforded us the opportunity to be recognised as a trusted business adviser across the continent.
The firm has an impressive track record in providing advice in relevant industry sectors and a thorough understanding of the way these sectors operate.
Our industry focus groups include:
- Agriculture;
- Banking & Financial services;
- Energy;
- Healthcare;
- Infrastructure;
- Mining & Natural Resources;
- Real Estate & Leisure;
- IT, Telecommunications & Media; and
- Transport & Logistics.
