Who we serve
Banks, Financiers and Investors
Institutions deploying capital for development and commercial projects.
IncludingCommercial banks, DFIs, multilaterals, funds and family offices.
Your operating context
A financier's question is never only whether a transaction can be documented. It is whether the security is perfected, whether the remedies work in practice, whether the borrower's delivery risk is actually controlled by the documents, and whether — if it all goes wrong — recovery is achievable in this jurisdiction and any others involved. We build for the enforcement scenario from the first draft, because enforceability cannot be retrofitted.
We make capital deployable with bankability, enforceability and recovery readiness, hardwiring delivery risk controls into documentation.
The problems that bring you to us
- “The lender needs enforceable security across multiple registries and jurisdictions.”
- “A facility has gone into default and enforcement must begin.”
- “A development finance mandate requires environmental, social and integrity compliance we must evidence.”
- “A borrower is restructuring and our recovery position needs protecting.”
- “We are designing a new guarantee or on-lending scheme and it must be legally durable.”
The capabilities we bring
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Finance
The Finance Advisory Platform helps clients mobilise, structure, deploy, manage, and protect capital across the entire investment lifecycle.Finance is the engine that enables enterprises to grow, governments to deliver infrastructure, financial institutions to intermediate capital, and investors to participate confidently in Africa's development.Our role is to help clients structure financeable, bankable, compliant, and commercially sustainable transactions that unlock investment while appropriately allocating legal, financial, regulatory, and commercial risk.
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Insolvency & Business Restructuring
Every enterprise experiences periods of challenge. Economic downturns, market disruption, technological change, operational failures, governance weaknesses, regulatory shifts and financial distress can threaten even the strongest organisations.The objective of restructuring is not simply to deal with failure. It is to preserve viable businesses, protect employment, safeguard investments, maximise creditor recoveries and restore long-term commercial sustainability.The Insolvency & Business Restructuring Advisory Platform exists to help organisations respond decisively to financial and operational distress through strategic restructuring, business recovery and enterprise renewal.
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Disputes & Employment
Disputes are an inevitable feature of commerce, investment and institutional life. They arise when commercial expectations diverge, contractual obligations are contested, regulatory decisions are challenged, or competing interests must be reconciled.While disputes may be unavoidable, prolonged conflict, unmanaged litigation and adversarial positions often destroy value, consume management attention, damage relationships and delay strategic objectives.The purpose of the Disputes & Employment Platform is not merely to conduct litigation. It is to help clients anticipate disputes, manage conflict strategically, preserve commercial relationships where possible and achieve outcomes that protect long-term enterprise value and institutional integrity.
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ESG & Sustainability
The Strategic Advisory Platforms are the market-facing architecture of Ligomarc.Their effectiveness depends not only on technical excellence, but also on disciplined governance, clear accountability, coordinated leadership and consistent execution.The purpose of this Chapter is to establish the governance framework through which the Strategic Advisory Platforms are led, coordinated and continuously improved.
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Tax, Transfer Pricing & Business Succession
Tax is one of the most significant determinants of enterprise value, investment performance and long-term wealth preservation. Sound tax planning supports capital formation, enhances competitiveness and provides certainty for business growth. Poor tax governance, by contrast, creates unnecessary cost, regulatory exposure, disputes and reputational risk.Equally, the continuity of an enterprise depends not only on financial performance, but also on the orderly transition of ownership, leadership and stewardship across generations.The Tax, Transfer Pricing & Business Succession Advisory Platform exists to help clients make informed decisions that optimise value, strengthen governance and preserve enterprises for the future.
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Regulatory Strategy
To help regulators regulate well, to help regulated enterprises engage regulation strategically, and to help African states and institutions convert continental and regional commitments into enforceable national law.
Representative experience
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
Central bank and financial-sector regulator
Reported
End-to-end technology-governance framework for a central bank
A central bank and financial-sector regulator needed a technology-governance framework addressing both its own internal governance and its regulatory oversight of the sector, spanning data, cyber risk and digital supervision, and aligned to regional and continental policy frameworks.
- Technology
- Regulation
- Governance
State development corporation
Ongoing
Structuring a national industrial and economic development fund
A public development institution needed to establish a fund capable of deploying capital into industry at scale, with governance and a regulatory framework able to satisfy both government and external financiers.
- Development Finance
- Government
Financial institutions
Various
Receivership and liquidation litigation for lenders
Secured lenders needed to enforce against defaulting borrowers in contested proceedings where recovery depended on whether the security had been properly perfected years earlier.
- Enforcement
- Insolvency
- Banking
Who you would work with
Partnering with development finance institutions
Development finance institutions occupy a particular place in our client universe. You finance much of what Africa builds, you hold the continent to standards that domestic law often does not yet require, and you are among the most demanding readers of our work. This Suite is designed to meet the investment-cycle, governance and reporting disciplines DFIs require.
Safeguards and E&S compliance
We advise to the standards your boards apply, including the IFC Performance Standards, the AfDB Integrated Safeguards System and comparable frameworks, and embed environmental and social action plans into facility and project documentation so compliance is enforceable, not aspirational.
Integrity and governance
Integrity due diligence, beneficial-ownership transparency, sanctions and AML awareness, and tax good-governance standards: addressed at appraisal, not discovered at supervision.
Sovereign and sub-sovereign exposure
Guarantees, indemnities, contingent liabilities and terminal-payment exposure are assessed before they crystallise. Our state-side arbitration and sovereign advisory work means we understand both sides of the government signature.
Lender-side legal certainty
Enforceability opinions, security creation and perfection across relevant EAC jurisdictions, conditions-precedent management and local counsel coordination, delivered to the standard your legal departments expect of panel counsel.
Blended and concessional structures
First-loss and guarantee structures, results-based financing, concessional tranches and technical assistance windows, structured so development intent survives contact with commercial documentation.
When things go wrong
We have led Uganda's largest corporate administration from inside the distressed enterprise. We know how workouts behave where your money lands, and how to preserve enterprise value, jobs and the development outcome while protecting your recovery.
The DFI journey map
DFIs think in investment cycles, not legal departments. So do we. One relationship, one standard, from origination to exit — each stage can be commissioned separately, or the cycle retained end-to-end under one coordinated leadership structure. We welcome panel, framework and call-down arrangements, and we respond to legal panel tenders across the region.
| Investment cycle | What you need | Where the Suite serves you |
|---|---|---|
| Origination | Pipeline development, pre-feasibility, country and sector context | Sector Platforms; the Bankability Method |
| Appraisal | Legal due diligence, regulatory and integrity reviews, safeguards screening | Integrity, AML/CFT & Beneficial Ownership Review; E&S Safeguards Compliance; Regulatory Strategy; Tax & Transfer Pricing |
| Structuring | Facility and security documentation, guarantees, co-financing arrangements | Finance; Infrastructure; Energy; Tax, delivered through Finance Law First |
| Implementation | Conditions precedent, local content, E&S action plans, labour standards, disbursement support | Financial Close Accelerator; the Local Content Method; Workforce Restructuring |
| Supervision | Covenant compliance, monitoring, reporting, early-warning signals | Regulatory Strategy; ESG & Sustainability; Finance |
| Workout | Restructuring, enforcement, recovery, while preserving enterprise value | Insolvency & Business Restructuring; Strategic Interventions; Disputes & Employment |
| Exit & evaluation | Transfers, refinancing, lessons captured for the next operation | Finance; Logistics & Trade; knowledge and evaluation support |
We welcome panel, framework and call-down arrangements, and we respond to legal panel tenders across the region.
Talk to us about financiers.
Describe the matter in confidence and we will route it to the partner accountable for that work.