Simon Associés Africa Desk

Simon Associés has developed a real multidisciplinary legal expertise dedicated to Africa, and more specifically to French, English and Portuguese speaking African countries.

This expertise, developed with the aim of supporting companies in securing their flow of business, money and human resource in Africa, has gradually been expanded to a fully dedicated Africa Desk, to make it possible also to carry out trade exchanges between African and French economic actors on the French market.

The Simon Associés Africa Desk has signed a priviledged agreement with an agency specializing in strategic development that provides support to companies in their project, from the development of their strategic plan to the area, up to the operational implementation on site.

On the legal side, Simon Associés supports you thanks to its local teams, as close as possible from your projects and issues, to secure your operations such as the creation / closure of subsidiaries / JV, sending temporary or permanent employees (particularly with issues related to employment contracts / visas), contractual – regulatory structuring in response of tenders, coordination of pre-litigation and litigation deals, drafting of sales agreements with partners located in the area.

In liaison with the Asia / China Desk, the Africa Desk is also a strategic central platform between Europe, Africa and China.

The Simon Associés Africa Desk now counts 4 Simon Associés lawyers, working together with our partners teams.

Track-record : 

• Support to a US company, shareholder of a Cameroonian company (regulated sector), in a shareholder dispute with the Moroccan shareholder (acts subject to French law)
• Support to French companies in the creation of JVs in Algeria
• Support to French companies to monitor legal secretariat of their JVs / subsidiaries in Algeria (governance, annual GA & dividends dispatching)
• Support to a CAC40 French group in the management issues of building sites located in Algeria
• Support to a French Institution with a problem of real estate ownership in Algeria
• Support of a French company in the creation of a subsidiary in Morocco
• Support to French companies in their development though distributors in Morocco
• Support to French companies in their development though distributors in Tunisia
• Support to a French company in its project of creation of a subsidiary in France with Tunisian partners (Tunisian exchange regulation issue (currency exit from Tunisia / dividends transfer to Tunisia), detention by a Tunisian citizen of a bank account abroad (France))
• Support to French companies in their development though distributors in Egypt
• Support to French companies in the framework of sending French employees on missions in French-speaking African coutries such as Egypt & Senegal (employment contract, resident visa …)
• Support to bidders on markets in French-speaking Africa (Senegal) and English-speaking areas (Ethiopia)
• Support of a South-African company in the creation of a subsidiary in France