IFLR is delighted to announce that the research process for its third annual IFLR Africa Awards is now open. To nominate deals, teams, firms and individuals for the awards please use the forms below. All the award categories, along with the criteria, methodology and what we will be looking for, are detailed in the Awards Summary.
IFLR has recognised and rewarded legal innovation and ingenuity in cross-border deal-making for over 20 years, and in 2021 we hosted (virtually) the second-ever Africa Awards. Building on this, and in-line with our coverage in other regions, the IFLR Africa Awards returns in 2022 to celebrate the most innovative and pioneering law firms, legal teams and individual lawyers from 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.
Calendar:
Deadline for entries: June 16 2022
Shortlist publication: July 2022
Winners announcement: August 2022
Nomination forms:
All entries must be uploaded to our PORTAL by June 16 2022. Please get in touch as soon as possible if you wish to participate.
For any questions about the research, please contact Jamie Rayat
For queries about business development and commercial opportunities related to the awards, please contact Emily Kyriacou
Last year’s IFLR Africa winners’ presentation, write ups and shortlists are free to view at Winners 2021 and Shortlist 2021.You can also find all of IFLR’s awards winner presentations and podcast discussions, as well as interviews with some of last year’s award winners, here.
What we look for:
IFLR awards strive to recognise and reward work that improves the cross-border investment environment. To do this, the awards look exclusively legal innovation in cross-border transactions, with judges focused on deals that break new legal ground, set precedents, and bring clarity to, or develop, the legal environment for cross-border corporate finance.
When searching for legal innovation, IFLR will consider new legal structures, deals that address new regulatory frameworks, first-of-its-kind deals and transactions that adapt existing technology to local markets. The difficulty and intricacy of that innovation is assessed, as well as its likely market impact.
IFLR will be awarding national firms of the year, in-house teams of the year, and the most innovative deals and teams in the following categories: capital markets, loans, M&A, private equity, project finance: energy, infrastructure and natural resources, project finance: renewables and social infrastructure, and restructuring.
The awards will also be inviting nominations for a new Net-zero Transition award, which will recognise a law firm or legal team for its work on innovative initiatives or deals that contribute to net-zero goals.
All deals must have closed between June 1 2021 and May 31 2022 to be included in the research. Deals that have not reached financial close before the end of May 2022 will not be considered. Deals must also meet the awards’ cross-border criteria. We recommend that firms nominate no more than three deals in any one Deal of the year category, using the forms provided above - we value quality over quantity.
As part of the award research, IFLR will review all IFLR1000 submissions made by law firms across the region, as well as awards-specific nominations by both national and international firms. We will also speak to leading lawyers and in-house counsel across the region and in key markets for African work during the research period, to ensure breadth and depth of coverage across Africa’s vast, diverse and specialised legal markets.
While there is no specific category to recognise ESG, ESG is important to IFLR and the awards strive to reward legal innovation that supports high ESG standards across all categories.
Good luck!
