In February, the first disbursements under the Azito project financing were made. The Azito deal - a 300 MW, $223 million power project in Côte d'Ivoire - is significant for two reasons: it is the largest project financing in west Africa since the debt-restructuring crisis of the 1980s and it was concluded under the OHADA uniform laws. These create a transnational uniform legal system across 16 countries in francophone Africa. Between them they establish new company, bankruptcy and securities-law provisions designed to make the region more attractive for project financings and other inward investment, without radically altering the basic French-law civil-code system in operation.
"The treaties provide convenience," says John Riggs, a partner in the Paris office of US law firm White & Case, which has been involved in several recent project financings in Africa. "They combine many of the best elements of New York and English law without disrupting the pre-existing legal systems based on the French civil code."
Negotiations for the Azito project began before the treaties came into force in January 1998, so the lenders - advised by White & Case - would probably have gone ahead anyway. And until there has been a certain amount of interpretative case law, the treaties remain new and unproven.