June update

Trinity International LLP is pleased to announce that it has promoted Conrad Marais to the partnership, effective 1 May 2009.

Conrad joined Trinity in early 2007 having practiced in Australia with international firm Allens Arthur Robinson in its Energy, Resources and Infrastructure and Corporate teams in Perth and Melbourne where he worked closely with key international and domestic energy and resource companies. He continued his career at Freshfields in London advising on a broad range of cross-border M&A transactions, joint venture and energy projects in a number of emerging markets. Conrad has experience across diverse sectors with a particular focus on project and corporate finance in energy and infrastructure transactions. Having lived and spent considerable time working in Africa, Conrad has added to the experience of the Trinity team in developing projects and advising on transactions across the continent and in other emerging markets.

In other news, we are pleased to say that notwithstanding the ongoing bad global economic news, we continue to see healthy investment in energy and infrastructure projects in emerging markets. As noted in the last edition of Focus, there has particularly been an increased interest in renewable energy projects and we have recently been instructed on a number of these – including wind and solar projects – in Eastern Europe, and continue to be involved in wind power, hydropower, energy-from-waste, sustainable forestry and bioethanol production in jurisdictions including Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda and Mauritius.

In this edition of Focus, we look at the importance of The Treaty on the Organisation of Business Law in Africa in forging a way forward in doing business in Africa. In Legalese, Guy Jolly looks at the recently published UK Bribery Bill which is aimed at providing a comprehensive scheme of offences in relation to bribery both in the UK and abroad.