IFLR is delighted to announce that the research for its second annual IFLR Africa Awards is now open.
Deadline for entries: June 18 2021
Shortlist publication: July 29 2021
Winners announcement: September 9 2021
All the submission forms for making entries to the awards can be found below.
IFLR has recognised and rewarded legal innovation and ingenuity in cross-border deal-making for over 20 years, and in 2020 we hosted (virtually) the first-ever Africa Awards. Building on this, and in-line with our coverage in other regions, the IFLR Africa Awards returns in 2021 to celebrate the most innovative and pioneering law firms, legal teams and individual lawyers across the continent.
The shortlists and winners will be decided after an exhaustive research process and deliberation by an internal panel of judges made up of the IFLR editorial team.
As part of the research, IFLR will review all submissions that were made to IFLR's sister publication IFLR1000, as well as direct written entries to the awards.
To help evaluate submissions and ensure we have covered the Africa’s vast, diverse and specialised legal markets, IFLR will also speak to leading lawyers and in-house counsel across the region and in key markets for African work during the research.
The awards focus exclusively on legal innovation, with a focus on transactions that break new legal ground, set market precedents or introduce new innovations into the region’s legal toolkit.
Research details
Please refer to the Awards Summary for specific details around methodology and criteria. International law firms, national law firms based in the region, individuals and teams in private practice and in-house will be recognised.
IFLR will award deals and teams in the following categories:
Capital markets deal of the year
Domestic deal of the year
Loans deal of the year
M&A deal of the year
Private equity deal of the year
Project finance: energy, infrastructure and natural resources deal of the year
Project finance: renewables and social infrastructure deal of the year
Restructuring deal of the year
And law firms across the following categories:
National law firm of the year (18 jurisdictions)
Banking firm of the year - Nigeria and South Africa only
Capital markets firm of the year - Nigeria and South Africa only
M&A firm of the year - Nigeria and South Africa only
Project finance firm of the year - Nigeria and South Africa only
In addition to the above, there are also awards to celebrate innovation across the in-house legal sector and recognise outstanding individual lawyers:
In-house awards: Investment bank in-house team of the year, Corporate in-house team of the year, In-house tech innovation award
Individual awards: Rising star of the year award, IFLR Women Dealmakers Hall of Fame award, Lifetime achievement award and In-house Market Makers award
Important information
All nomination forms must be uploaded HERE by June 18 2021.
Nomination forms:
We recommend only submitting three deals per category using the forms provided. These awards cover the period June 1 2020 to May 31 2021. All deals must have closed in this period to be considered. The deadline for nominations is June 18 2021. Deals that do not reach financial close by June 2021 will not be considered.
The IFLR awards are based solely on legal innovation; we are interested in deals that break new legal ground and set market precedents. Aside from the domestic deal of the year category, they are exclusively for international deals and must have a cross-border element.
As part of our awards research process, the IFLR team will review all relevant IFLR1000 submissions. Innovative deals that meet the awards criteria from those submissions will be automatically considered for award.
Please contact awards editor Jamie Rayat for any questions regarding the research process: jamie.rayat@euromoneyplc.com
For any commercial queries please contact Liam Sharkey: lsharkey@iflr.com
