February update

Welcome to the February 2010 edition of Focus. The relative quiet of the Christmas and New Year period feels nothing more than a distant memory as the team here is advising on a number of deals across the power and infrastructure sectors. We continue to notice a lot of activity in the renewables sector across the emerging markets. This is supported by our continuing work on wind projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Eastern Europe, solar projects in Western Europe and new instructions in the sector including in relation to an agro energy development in Tanzania. With the closing of a corporate restructuring for a power utility client and our recent instruction by the lenders in respect of the provision of additional debt to an Africa-focused infrastructure fund, 2010 has got off to a busy start.

In this edition, we feature an article written by Simon Norris and Kaushik Ray that originally appeared in the Financial Times’ dedicated Africa publication, This is Africa. The article, “The Rocky Road to Independents”, considers the role of privately-financed independent power projects in meeting Africa’s dire need for electricity. Our thanks to This is Africa for allowing us to publish the article.

Legalese, our collection of simple articles that look at potentially complex legal issues, highlights a recent High Court case on the importance of clarity of drafting and the (unintended) consequences that may result from unclear language in contracts.

As ever, if you have any comments or questions about Focus, or generally, please get in touch.