London, UK, 9 December 2014: The African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCA) today announces the launch of its newly formed Francophone Africa-focused Legal & Regulatory Committee (Francophone Committee or Committee), a sub-Committee of AVCA’s Legal & Regulatory Committee (L&R Committee). Since its launch in 2012, AVCA’s L&R Committee has assisted AVCA members to navigate the often complex legal and regulatory landscapes of different African countries, in order to advance private investment in Africa.
The Francophone Committee will be chaired by Rafik Mzah, Chief Legal Officer at AfricInvest Group, and include other influential industry practitioners from AVCA member firms: 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, Attorney at Law - Of Counsel at STC Partners, Mara Topping, Partner at White & Case LLP, Pascale Gallien, Partner at Heenan Paris AARPI, and Solomon Wifa, Partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP.
Under the guidance of AVCA’s L&R Committee, the Francophone Committee will support AVCA to advocate on behalf of the private equity and venture capital industry in French-speaking Africa. The Committee will lead AVCA’s development of technical resources and training to help private equity and venture capital fund managers and investors to do business in French-speaking Africa, and support AVCA to develop educational resources on region-specific matters.
Rafik Mzah, Chair of the Francophone Committee commented: “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. The Committee will assist AVCA’s growing membership with the tools and resources to propel and secure their investment activities in the Francophone region. We 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”.
For more information on AVCA’s Legal & Regulatory Private Equity Country Guides, please see here.
For full biographies of the Francophone L&R sub-Committee, view here.
For more information, please contact:
Sara Firouzyar / Sarah Caddy
Gong Communications
+44 (0)20 7935 4800/ +44 (0)7766 021351
avca@gongcommunications.com
