COVID-19 raises a range of financial services issues which financial institutions are managing and will continue managing over the coming months. Business continuity plans have already been activated by financial service providers and clients alike. The Government of Uganda has also put in place several preventive measures including a partial lockdown that will most certainly test business continuity plans of financial services providers.
Our lawyers in Uganda advise some of the largest financial services companies and institutions on both their day-to-day operations and wider strategic objectives.
We help our clients contend with legal issues in banking – including restructurings, regulatory demands and the compliance costs that have come with reform.
Our clients include asset managers, building societies, capital markets and their participants, investment banks, national regulators, private banks, private equity firms, professional services organizations engaged principally in financial services and retail banks. In addition, we regularly work with retail intermediaries on the legal issues involved in the selling of financial services to consumers.
Experience has included advising:
- Bank of Uganda as projects counsel in conducting a regulatory legal audit and due diligence on domestic commercial banks including Greenland Bank, National Bank of Commerce and ABC Capital Bank;
- Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank in special-case financial institutions’ law compliance programs;
- Trade and Development Bank for the USD30.5 million limited recourse financing of the development of a luxury hotel;
- The lenders (Proparco, International Finance Corporation, African Development Bank, DEG, CDC Group, Absa Bank and Nedbank London) in the USD423 million project re-financing of the 250 MW Bujagali II hydro power dam, including advising the lenders on the Government of Uganda’s sovereign guarantee commitments;
- Standard Chartered Bank London, FMO, European Investment Bank and BNP Paribas, as the outgoing lenders, in connection with the USD403 million project re-financing of the 250 MW Bujagali II hydro power project;
- dfcu Limited, a publicly-traded financial services group, on a USD55 million rights issue;
- CIC Africa (Uganda) on a landmark and first-of-its-kind USD3 million public offer of securities to a targeted market / investors (savings and credit co-operative societies in Uganda); and
- Kakira Sugar Limited the issue of an up to USD30 million medium-term notes programme.
- Band 1 – General Business Law (Chambers and Partners 2019)
- Tier 1 – Financial and Corporate (IFLR1000 2019)