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Ligomarc Advocates

About Ligomarc

Institutions endure where individuals cannot.

Ligomarc Advocates is an African strategic advisory institution built to serve the enterprises, governments, financiers and infrastructure players shaping the continent's future — and deliberately built to outlast the people who founded it.

At a glance

Founded
2003
Headquarters
Kampala, Uganda
Partners
7
Platforms
14
Network
Andersen Global · 170+ countries

Who we are

Ligomarc Advocates is an African finance law and strategic advisory firm. Founded in Kampala in 2003, we advise the enterprises, governments, financiers and infrastructure players who build, fund and govern Africa's real economy.

We are Finance-Law First. Our partners have not only advised institutions; several have run them, including as court-appointed administrators, as advisers to regulators and as members of constitutional bodies. That is why our advice is judged by one standard: whether it holds when tested — by a lender, a regulator, a court or a parliament.

Vision
To be Africa's most trusted legal and strategic partner to enterprises, governments, financiers and infrastructure players.
Mission
To provide integrated legal and strategic advisory services that enable our clients to build, finance, govern, transform and protect the institutions, enterprises and investments that drive Africa's sustainable development.

The Elephant & Pattern

The elephant commands respect without demanding it. It is fair rather than forceful, loyal rather than loud, deliberate in every movement, and, despite its ancient lineage, remarkably adaptable — integrity, relationships, excellence, innovation.

The African pattern woven through our identity says the same thing in line and geometry: interconnection, balance, rhythm, and traditional motifs read in a modern hand.

Our strength is not only what we can do. It is how we carry it. Like the gentle giant, we lead through values, not volume — commanding trust and not demanding it.

Why Ligomarc

Independently ranked. Operationally tested. Constitutionally disciplined. Continentally connected.

  • Founded in 2003. Independently ranked.

    Ligomarc Advocates has built a record of consequential mandates for enterprises, governments, financiers and infrastructure players since 2003. That record is independently recognised. In Chambers Global 2026 the firm is ranked in Uganda for Corporate/Commercial (Band 3) and Dispute Resolution (Band 3), with three ranked partners. In IFLR1000 2026 the firm is ranked Tier 4 for Financial and Corporate and recognised in Project Development, with two ranked partners.

  • Operating experience, not just advice

    We have led Uganda's largest corporate administration from inside the enterprise — identifying, adjudicating and negotiating creditor claims from the operator's seat, not only the lender's. That operating mandate shapes how we advise in stress, on every platform.

  • Statecraft and sovereign work

    Our state-side arbitration and sovereign advisory work informs how we assess guarantees, contingent liabilities and terminal-payment exposure — before they crystallise onto a balance sheet.

  • A constitutional lens

    Governance, regulatory and public-institution mandates are approached with constitutional discipline, so the advice holds when tested — by a court, a regulator, a financier or a parliament. We offer that discipline as a service, not only as a habit: Constitutional & Administrative Risk Review, on Platform 10.

  • One team on every mandate

    Legal, commercial, tax, technology, disputes and sector specialists assembled around your outcome; multidisciplinary by design, coordinated under one leadership.

  • Continental reach, embedded frameworks

    A member firm of Andersen Global, anchored in the EAC, COMESA, AfCFTA and AU Agenda 2063 frameworks, serving DFIs, governments, enterprises and infrastructure players across borders.

23 years of consequential mandates, a Partners Board that has sat inside distressed institutions and constitutional offices alike, and a network that reaches 170+ countries from a single accountable relationship in Kampala.

We are of this continent, raised in its markets, shaped by its institutions, invested in its future. When you engage Ligomarc, your ambition for Africa becomes ours.

Why Ligomarc exists

Clients do not come to Ligomarc because they have a legal problem. They come because they have a strategic challenge that requires trusted judgement and multidisciplinary capability.

Africa is undergoing one of the most significant economic and institutional transformations in its history. Those developments bring immense opportunity, and they create increasing complexity. Major projects today involve multiple stakeholders, multiple jurisdictions, sophisticated financing structures and evolving regulatory frameworks.

The African professional services landscape is full of excellent practices built around individuals and dissolved by them. We are building something different — which is why we invest in structure a firm of our size is not required to have: a Partners’ Board, defined practice and platform leadership, and a documented operating system.

Our two strategic imperatives

Every significant decision at Ligomarc answers two questions.

  • Imperative One

    Building Ligomarc's Intrinsic Value

    Ligomarc is intentionally building an enduring African institution. Every mandate, every client relationship, every professional developed and every innovation adopted should leave the institution stronger than it found it.

    Does this strengthen Ligomarc's Intrinsic Value?

    • Trusted client relationships
    • Exceptional people
    • Institutional knowledge
    • Intellectual capital
    • Strong governance
    • Technology and innovation
    • Financial strength
    • Operational excellence
    • A distinctive and trusted brand
    • An enduring institutional culture

  • Imperative Two

    Supporting Clients' Top Strategic Priorities

    Clients engage Ligomarc because they are pursuing important strategic objectives. Success is measured not simply by the quality of the legal advice, but by the strategic outcomes we help clients achieve.

    Does this support our client's top strategic priorities?

    • Build
    • Finance
    • Govern
    • Transform
    • Protect

These imperatives are mutually reinforcing. The stronger Ligomarc becomes, the greater our capacity to serve our clients. The greater the value we create for our clients, the stronger Ligomarc becomes.

Our philosophy

Finance Law First.

Finance is the connective tissue of modern commerce and public investment. Legal advice creates the greatest value when it enables sound financial and commercial outcomes: how value is created, capital raised and deployed, risk allocated, transactions financed, institutions governed and long-term value protected.

This does not imply that finance is the only discipline that matters — it recognises that most consequential decisions are, in the end, decisions about money. Finance Law First requires every professional in the firm to understand how value is created, how capital is raised and deployed, how commercial risks are allocated, how transactions are financed, how institutions are governed, and how long-term value is protected.

Two practice engines

Clients engage us through platforms. Behind every platform sits one or both of the firm’s practice engines, which supply the technical depth.

  • FIT

    Finance, Infrastructure, Technology & Intellectual Property

    The build-and-finance engine. FIT structures capital, delivers projects and protects the technology and ideas on which growth depends, from first term sheet to financial close.

  • TED

    Tax, Transfer Pricing & Business Succession, Employment & Disputes

    The protect-and-sustain engine. TED defends value, resolves conflict, keeps enterprises compliant, and carries wealth, people and leadership safely across generations — standing guard over every structure FIT builds.

We apply a constitutional lens to everything, including commercial work. This is not ceremony.

In African markets a very large proportion of high-value commercial risk is ultimately constitutional risk wearing commercial clothes: who owns minerals in the ground, what the State may reserve or expropriate and on what terms, whether a licence revocation observed due process, whether a procurement can survive judicial review, whether a tax measure was lawfully made, and what a community is owed and by whom.

Advice that ignores this dimension reads well and fails late.

We therefore ask, on every mandate

  • What is the source of the power being exercised?
  • What are its limits?
  • Was due process observed?
  • Is the measure proportionate?
  • Would this survive scrutiny by a court, an auditor, a legislature and the public?

Institutional experience

Advisory firms describe capability. Institutions demonstrate it.

Three bodies of experience run through the firm and are applied, in different combinations, across every platform.

Operating Under Appointment

Our Managing Partner, Ruth Sebatindira SC, served as the Court-Appointed Administrator of Uganda Telecom Limited from 2020 to 2022 — the first and largest corporate administration in Uganda's insolvency history. For three years the mandate was not to advise on a distressed national enterprise but to run one.

The disciplines this built

  • Assuming control of a strategic national asset and maintaining service continuity, payroll, cash and procurement throughout.
  • Identifying, verifying, protecting and valuing assets in a contested and incompletely documented estate.
  • Adjudicating, negotiating and managing creditor claims, and running creditor engagement to a defensible standard.
  • Managing employees, unions and pension obligations through restructuring.
  • Maintaining licences, spectrum and regulatory standing while the entity was in distress.
  • Reporting to and taking directions from the court, under continuous supervision.
  • Engaging the whole of government; line ministry, Attorney General, Solicitor General, sector regulator, Auditor General and Parliament.
  • Designing and running investor search and disposal processes capable of withstanding scrutiny.
  • Conducting forensic review of prior management and transactions, and litigating while operating.
  • Communicating publicly on a matter of national interest, under sustained scrutiny.
  • Reconstructing governance and preparing an institution for handover.

Very few firms anywhere in Africa have operated a distressed national asset day to day and answered to a court while doing it. It is why our advice on distress, stewardship and institutional intervention begins with what an institution can actually be made to do, rather than with what a document says it should.

Constitutional Office

Ruth Sebatindira SC served eight years as a member of the Judicial Service Commission of Uganda, a constitutional office, where she chaired the Disciplinary Committee. She was also President of the Uganda Law Society from 2013 to 2016.

The disciplines this built

  • Designing and conducting appointment, complaint, investigation and disciplinary processes that must survive judicial review.
  • Applying the requirements of administrative justice in practice; fair hearing, an unbiased tribunal, reasoned decisions and proportionate sanction.
  • Handling evidence, confidentiality and reputational exposure in proceedings against office holders.
  • Understanding the judiciary and the accountability institutions as institutions; how they are constituted, how they decide, and what constrains them.
  • Constitutional interpretation, and the limits of public power in practice rather than in theory.
  • Professional regulation, ethics and the governance of a self-regulating profession.

This is the origin of the constitutional lens. It is applied to commercial mandates as rigorously as to public ones, because a very large proportion of high-value commercial risk in African markets is ultimately constitutional risk in commercial clothing.

State-Side International Arbitration

Ligomarc acts on the State side in international arbitration arising from the exit and buy-out of a regulated utility concession — among the most consequential categories of dispute an African government can face, because the sums at stake are fiscal, the counterparty is well resourced, and the outcome sets the terms on which future concessions are written.

The disciplines this built

  • Counsel-side conduct of institutional international arbitration seated outside the continent, working alongside international co-counsel.
  • Interpretation and defence of buy-out, terminal payment and compensation formulae in long-term concession agreements.
  • The status and finality of regulatory disallowances, and the boundary between regulatory determination and arbitral reopening.
  • Instruction, testing and rebuttal of quantum, accounting and regulatory economics expert evidence.
  • The treatment of tax in awards, including gross-up claims and their proper limits.
  • Privilege management across jurisdictions, including draft expert material.
  • Assessment and management of the State's contingent liability and fiscal exposure throughout.

We describe this capability without identifying the matter or the parties. Confidentiality is not a formality in this firm; it is the condition on which governments and financiers bring us their most exposed positions.

Where we concentrate

Our work is concentrated in the sectors that determine whether African economies transform or merely grow. These are not a list of industries we happen to serve; they are the productive base of the continent.

  • A

    Agriculture & Food Security

    Because africa must feed itself before it feeds the world.

    Value chains, agribusiness, land and tenure, agricultural finance, food systems and rural transformation.

  • I

    Infrastructure, Utilities & Energy, including Oil & Gas

    Because nothing industrialises in the dark.

    Transport and corridors, water and sanitation, urban and social infrastructure, digital infrastructure, power and oil and gas.

  • M

    Mining, Manufacturing & Industry

    Because africa's minerals should leave the continent as products and prosperity, not only as ore.

    Mineral exploration, development and beneficiation, critical and green minerals, industrial projects and special economic zones.

  • S

    Supply Chain & Trade

    Because a market of over a billion people becomes real only when goods, services and capital actually move.

    Logistics, customs and transit, corridors and ports, cross-border trade and the operationalisation of the AfCFTA.

Industries we serve

  • Agriculture and Food Systems
  • Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies
  • Banking and Financial Services
  • Capital Markets
  • Energy
  • Extractives and Mining
  • Healthcare and Life Sciences
  • Infrastructure and Construction
  • Logistics and Trade
  • Manufacturing and Industry
  • Public Institutions and Government
  • Real Estate and Urban Development
  • Telecommunications
  • Transport
  • Water and Environment

How the firm is governed

Consequential mandates are awarded to institutions, not to individuals who happen to share a letterhead.

A Partners Board of seven, chaired by the Managing Partner, holds strategy and mandate risk. Three Senior Partners and four Principal Partners lead and deputy-lead the practices. The Deputy Managing Partner carries delegated authority for the operational side of the business. Every client mandate has one named partner accountable for the outcome.

Ligomarc is governed by an Amended and Restated Partnership Deed which establishes a single Partners’ Board as the highest decision-making organ, accountable leadership subject to annual review, and documented due process for performance and discipline. The Deed states plainly that no role is untouchable: every partner, including the Managing Partner, is accountable under the same governance.

Each platform has a Platform Leader appointed by the Managing Partner with the approval of the Partners’ Board. The Platform Leader is accountable for the platform but does not own clients or mandates — clients and mandates belong to Ligomarc as an institution. A platform without an accountable partner sponsor does not operate.

Who leads the firm

An institution is its people. Ours is led by a Partners Board of seven, chaired by the Founder and Managing Partner. Four of the seven are women. Every practice in the firm is led or deputy-led by a woman.

We state the composition below for three reasons: because it is unusual, and unusual things should be stated plainly; because our clients, particularly development finance institutions, apply gender criteria to the enterprises they finance and increasingly to the advisers they appoint, and they are entitled to see how we measure; and because the African women who build, finance and govern enterprises on this continent should be able to find themselves in the room when they instruct counsel.

  • 4 of 7

    Partners Board members are women

  • 7

    Partners Board: three Senior Partners, four Principal Partners

  • 3 of 4

    Principal Partners are women

  • 3

    partners ranked in Chambers Global 2026; two also ranked in IFLR1000 2026

  • 100%

    of practices are led or deputy-led by a woman

  • 2

    INSOL International Fellows — among only a handful in Uganda

One delivery standard

  • Financeability

    Capital, cashflows, security and enforcement aligned as one system, so projects reach close and stay durable.

  • Auditability

    Risk registers, decision logs, approvals routing and version control that withstand review after the fact.

  • Enforceability

    Dispute architecture and arbitration readiness designed at the outset, because enforceability cannot be retrofitted.

  • Execution governance

    A single accountable partner per mandate, controlled escalation, and reporting matched to the complexity of the work.

How we work

  • One leadership structure

    Every mandate has one named partner accountable for the outcome and one named day-to-day contact, whatever the number of Platforms engaged.

  • Service standards

    We operate a certified quality management system under which acknowledgement, turnaround, reporting and escalation standards are set at engagement and reported against.

  • Escalation

    Any client may escalate to the Managing Partner. The route is set out in the engagement letter, not discovered in a crisis.

  • Independence and conflicts

    Every prospective mandate is cleared through a conflicts check before engagement. Where a conflict cannot be managed we say so at once and decline; we do not take a mandate we cannot see through.

  • Confidentiality and data protection

    Client information is held under legal professional privilege and under our obligations as a data controller and processor. Our own data protection compliance is maintained to the standard we advise clients to meet.

  • Fees and transparency

    Estimates are given before work begins, and variations are agreed before they are incurred.

One relationship, several ways to engage us

A mandate should be structured the way the client procures, not the way the adviser bills. We contract in the forms our clients actually use.

  • Panel and framework appointments

    We hold and respond to legal panel and framework tenders across the region, and we are equipped for the reporting, rate-card and conflicts disciplines that panel membership carries.

  • Call-down and task orders

    Where a framework is in place, individual assignments are commissioned as task orders against agreed rates and turnaround standards.

  • Fixed and capped fees

    Forty-two signature solutions across fourteen Platforms are scoped as defined deliverables and may, where appropriate, be priced on a fixed or capped basis — the point of building the Suite as products rather than hours.

  • Milestone and output-based fees

    For transactions and programmes, fees tied to defined outputs, such as an agreed term sheet, satisfaction of conditions precedent, financial close or first disbursement.

  • Retainers

    Standing advisory capacity for boards, regulators and institutions carrying continuous legal risk.

  • Secondment

    Our lawyers embed within client legal, investment or project teams for defined periods. We have delivered this model from inside an enterprise under administration.

Engagement is subject to conflicts clearance and to our terms of engagement.

Our values

Stated as behaviours, because a value that cannot be observed cannot be enforced. The first four are how clients experience us.

  • Integrity

    We do what is right.

    We give the advice the client needs, not the advice the client wants. We do not win around the rules, and we decline mandates that would require us to.

  • Relationships

    We build enduring partnerships grounded in respect and shared success.

    We are in this for decades. We invest in people, families, institutions and counterparts, including on the other side of a transaction or a dispute.

  • Excellence

    We pursue mastery.

    Technical precision is the entry ticket, not the achievement. The standard is work that holds up under audit, judicial review and parliamentary scrutiny.

  • Innovation

    We turn knowledge, technology and imagination into greater value.

    We build capability ahead of demand. We would rather be early and patient than late and busy.

  • Stewardship

    We hold what belongs to others: client assets, public resources, family legacies, institutional mandates. We hand them on in better condition.

  • Transparency

    On fees, on conflicts, on risk, and on bad news; especially on bad news, and especially early.

  • Collaboration

    One firm, one file. Platforms combine around the client; the client should never have to manage the seams between them.

Courage in Mandates. Discipline in Execution. Bring the Joy.

  • Courage in Mandates

    We take the difficult, unpopular, unclear and politically exposed work when it is right and lawful to do so, and we decline the lucrative work that is not.

  • Discipline in Execution

    Courage without discipline is recklessness. Deadlines, quality, documentation, follow-through and the unglamorous administration of a matter are where trust is actually built or lost.

  • Bring the Joy

    This work is demanding and often adversarial, and it is done by people. Rigour and warmth are not in tension. A firm that people are glad to belong to will out-execute one they merely work for.

Recognition

  • Founded

    2003

  • Chambers

    Band 3

  • IFLR1000

    Tier 4

  • Andersen Global

    170+ countries

  • ISO 9001

    Certified

Nothing on this site is intended to claim recognition the firm has not been awarded.

Our partnerships

Ligomarc Advocates is the Uganda member firm of Andersen Global, an international association of legally separate, independent tax and legal firms. The network comprises more than 17,000 professionals and over 2,000 partners, present in 475+ locations across 170+ countries, with 58 African member and collaborating firms, as at August 2026. For our EGFI clients, this membership is operational capability, not a logo.

  • Cross-border execution under one relationship

    When a client invests or operates across borders, we coordinate seamless, multi-jurisdictional support to a consistent standard, instead of assembling unfamiliar local counsel deal by deal.

  • Integrated tax and legal

    Andersen's tax-and-legal DNA pairs directly with our TED engine: cross-border tax structuring, transfer pricing and controversy handled as one capability across jurisdictions.

  • A deepening African footprint

    The network's African presence continues to grow, strengthening intra-African delivery aligned to the AfCFTA.

  • Consistent quality

    Shared standards mean the discipline a client experiences in Kampala is the discipline they experience across the network.

For governments, financiers and infrastructure players structuring across African and global markets, this is how Ligomarc delivers local enforcement depth and worldwide reach in a single, accountable relationship.

Leadership

All people →

Complex institution. Consequential decision. Speak with a Ligomarc partner.

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