Commercial Litigation in Anglophone Africa

Commercial Litigation in Anglophone Africa details the broad framework of the private international law rules in operation in each of the sixteen Anglophone jurisdictions considered (Botswana, Gambia, Ghana, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe).

 

The authors identify and provide a refined explanation of the law to be applied as it relates to: (i) civil jurisdiction over commercial disputes involving a foreign element; (ii) the enforcement of foreign judgments; and (iii) the availability and nature of the interim remedies, in each of the sixteen jurisdictions addressed. The authors have also provided comprehensive coverage of the potential availability of an anti-suit injunction (in common law jurisdictions) or anti-suit interdict (in Roman-Dutch law jurisdictions). 



Content

Consideration of the various ways in which a court can assume jurisdiction over a business dispute in common law jurisdictions (Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia) and Roman-Dutch law jurisdictions (Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe); Discussion of the potential benefits and difficulties which commercial litigants will experience in legal systems where jurisdiction is based entirely on service of process and in legal systems where jurisdiction is based on attachment of the defendant's person or property. In this respect, in particular, the second edition details the further entrenchment of the principle of forum non conveniens into the civil law of jurisdiction in the Republic of South Africa; An examination of the circumstances in which a court, once seised of jurisdiction over a business dispute, may, on the application of one of the parties, decline jurisdiction in deference to another jurisdiction; A detailed appraisal of the various mechanisms, both statutory and non-statutory, which are available to litigants seeking to enforce or prevent the enforcement of a foreign judgment in the jurisdictions covered; and Consideration of the various interim/interlocutory remedies available to commercial litigants in each of the jurisdictions addressed. Specifically, the work concentrates on the principles which govern, inter alia: asset freezing (and asset disclosure) orders; search and seize orders; third-party disclosure orders; anti-suit injunctions / interdicts, res litigiosa orders.