Uganda-rooted. Africa-focused.
Strategic legal counsel for capital, enterprise and public purpose in Africa.
Uganda-rooted and Africa-focused, Ligomarc advises enterprises, governments, financiers and infrastructure players on transactions, regulation, restructuring, disputes, technology, tax and institutional continuity. We combine finance-law depth with commercial judgment and an enduring African perspective.
Our ambition
To be Africa's most trusted legal and strategic partner to enterprises, governments, financiers and infrastructure players.
Stated as the direction we are pursuing — measured against the mandates we take and the outcomes we deliver.
Founded
2003
Chambers
Band 3
IFLR1000
Tier 4
Andersen Global
170+ countries
ISO 9001
Certified
Who we serve
Four institutions whose decisions shape Africa's growth.
We do not try to serve everyone. We focus where the consequences of getting it right — or wrong — extend well beyond the client.
Enterprises and Family-Owned Businesses
African and international businesses building, expanding or transforming across the continent.
We structure capital that can move, build contracts that protect delivery, and turn technology and intellectual property into protectable, investable value.
Governments and Public Institutions
Public institutions pursuing development through infrastructure, energy, industrialisation and regulatory reform.
We make public value financeable and defensible, deliver procurement and contracting that withstand scrutiny, and build governance that protects the public interest.
Banks, Financiers and Investors
Institutions deploying capital for development and commercial projects.
We make capital deployable with bankability, enforceability and recovery readiness, hardwiring delivery risk controls into documentation.
Infrastructure and Project Sponsors
Contractors, operators, sponsors and investors building and running critical infrastructure.
We protect schedule, margin and performance with bankable delivery contracts and strengthen payment and remedies pathways.
What we help clients accomplish
Clients do not arrive needing fourteen platforms. They arrive needing something to work.
Five outcomes define every platform and every mandate we undertake.
Build
Building enterprises. Building institutions. Building investments. Building markets. Building capability.
Finance
Mobilising capital. Structuring investment. Creating bankable projects. Supporting sustainable economic growth.
Govern
Strengthening boards. Improving institutions. Building accountability. Supporting sound decision-making. Enhancing public confidence.
Transform
Modernising organisations. Driving innovation. Improving competitiveness. Managing strategic change. Creating long-term resilience.
Protect
Protecting enterprise value. Protecting investments. Protecting intellectual capital. Protecting institutions. Protecting future generations.
How the firm is organised
One model, read in one direction.
Africa sets the agenda. Our clients bring it to us as mandates. The platforms organise our capability to meet them.
- Africasets the agenda
- EGFI Client Universebrings it to us as mandates
- Strategic Advisory Platformsorganise our capability
- FIT & TED Practice Enginessupply the technical depth
- Integrated Multidisciplinary Teamsdo the work
- Client Strategic Outcomesare what we are measured on
African Purpose
Four commitments that shape how we advise, not four slogans.
Each purpose carries named leadership, defined services and an annual record of activity. They are design principles for the work — and we expect to be measured on them.
01
African Family Businesses
Family enterprises carry most of Africa's jobs, wealth and inheritance. We help them institutionalise — governance, capital, succession and continuity — so that what one generation builds, the next can grow.
Signature output
Capital Readiness Pack + Governance & Succession Architecture
02
African Culture & Heritage
Africa's culture, creativity and heritage are assets of identity and of commerce. We protect and commercialise them, because a continent that owns its story owns its value.
Signature output
Legitimacy & Approvals Map + Audit-Ready Governance Pack
03
African Continental Integration
One African market is the continent's single largest opportunity. We structure the cross-border investments, corridors and institutions that make the AfCFTA, EAC and COMESA real, because integration is built transaction by transaction.
Signature output
Cross-Border Structure Pack + Enforcement & Disputes Architecture
04
African Institutional Stewardship
Strong institutions outlast strong individuals. We strengthen the public bodies, regulators and state enterprises on which every market depends, because Africa's future will be carried by institutions that endure.
Signature output
Regulatory Institution Strengthening Programme
Selected experience
Evidence of judgment under real conditions.
Central bank
Reported
Tax dispute protecting approximately UGX 60 billion
A revenue authority assessment against the central bank created material fiscal exposure and raised questions with implications well beyond the assessment itself.
- Tax
- Disputes
National energy regulator
Reported
Licence-amendment dispute in the electricity sector
A contested amendment to a major distribution concession put the regulator's authority, and the commercial terms of the country's largest electricity licence, before the courts.
- Disputes
- Energy
- Regulation
Strategic national digital infrastructure
2020–2022
Court-supervised administration of Uganda Telecom Limited
A strategic national telecommunications asset had failed, with creditors including a development finance institution, employees and the state all holding competing claims, and no operating stability from which to negotiate any of them.
- Special Situations
- Restructuring
- Government
Matter values, dates and client consents are being confirmed against firm records before publication.
Our people
Clients engage institutions. They instruct people.
Ruth SebatindiraSC
Founder & Managing Partner
Technology & Intellectual Property · Tax & Private Wealth
When a regulated institution faces a technology or tax question that will be examined by a board, a regulator and an auditor in turn, Ruth is the partner who builds the answer to survive all three.
[email protected]
Kabiito Karamagi
Senior Partner
Insolvency & Business Restructuring
Kabiito is the partner institutions call when a business is failing, creditors are fragmenting and someone has to restore control before value disappears.
[email protected]
Joshua Ogwal
Senior Partner
Finance, Power & Infrastructure
Joshua structures the transactions that decide whether an energy or infrastructure project reaches financial close — and whether it holds together afterwards.
[email protected]
Olivia Kyarimpa Matovu
Principal Partner
Dispute Resolution · Arbitration
Olivia takes the disputes where a regulated sector, a state agency or an infrastructure project has too much at stake to lose — and builds them to be enforceable, not merely arguable.
[email protected]
Martin Kakuru
Principal Partner
Litigation · Employment
Fifteen years before Uganda's superior courts and specialised tribunals, with the employment and public law practice institutions turn to when a dispute has become a governance problem.
[email protected]
Racheal Arinaitwe
Principal Partner
Corporate Governance · Banking & Finance
Racheal builds the governance and security documentation that lets a board demonstrate control and a lender demonstrate recourse.
[email protected]
Rita Birungi Baguma
Principal Partner
Insolvency & Business Restructuring · Banking & Finance
An INSOL International Fellow whose cross-border insolvency practice runs from Kampala through Nairobi, Lagos, London and the Cayman Islands.
[email protected]
Insights
Our thinking, published here first.
The substantive article lives on this domain. LinkedIn carries a summary and a link back.
Regulatory
Data sovereignty for African regulators
The AU Data Policy Framework, localisation and cross-border data flows — a continental lens on a question usually argued nationally.
Ligomarc Technology Group ·
Competition & M&A
Cross-border merger control in the East African Community
How the EAC Competition Authority's merger regulations interact with national review — and the sequencing problem that catches regional transactions.
Ligomarc Competition Group ·
Data Privacy
Data protection enters its enforcement phase
The shift from registration to active enforcement under the Data Protection and Privacy Act, 2019 and S.I. 21 of 2021 — and what regulated entities must now be able to show.
Ligomarc Technology Group ·
Complex institution. Consequential decision. Speak with a Ligomarc partner.
Tell us the nature of the matter and we will route it to the partner accountable for that work.