French-speaking Africa gets its own regulatory committee

The African Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (AVCA) has formed a Francophone Africa-focused legal and regulatory committee.

The committee, which is chaired by Rafik Mzah, chief legal officer at AfricInvest Group, aims to promote rulemaking conducive to Africa’s building private equity industry as well as tracking and monitoring current legislation.

Other influential industry practitioners who sit on the committee are: Arnaud Duhamel, partner at Gide Loyrette Nouel AARPI, Carolyn Campbell, managing director and general counsel at Emerging Capital Partners, Edouard Pontet, general counsel at Swicorp, Laurence Elong-Mbassi, counsel at STC Partners, Pascale Gallien, partner at Heenan Paris AARPI, Solomon Wifa, partner at O’Melveny & Myers and Mara Topping, partner at White & Case.

“With the existing and developing economic and legal cooperation amongst many French-speaking African countries, coupled with the increasing global focus on boosting business ties and investment in Africa, the formation of the committee of experienced counsels from a range of leading firms is very timely,” said in a statement Mzah.

The committee will also be targeting the rollout of AVCA’s Private Equity Country Guides for Francophone African countries, in French and English, to add to those already in place including Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia and Zimbabwe.

The guides provide foreign investors and managers in Africa with country-specific information and address common investor considerations including formation of business entities, corporate governance, creditor protections, exit options, taxation, remedial action, the regulatory environment and intellectual property protections.