Projects and Infrastructure
The Projects and Infrastructure team at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr has experience across the full spectrum of finance and project related issues. We have been extensively involved in infrastructure and project finance, public private partnerships (PPP) and energy projects in Southern Africa and across the African continent.
Our key mandates include public finance, restructurings of state owned enterprises and divestures of state assets, as well as general public commercial transactions.
Our experience of acting for clients in both the public and private sector, awarding authorities, funders and consortia, has given us an in-depth understanding of the issues on all sides of the negotiating table. With this knowledge, we are able to conduct a commercially minded risk assessment of the project and propose effective legal solutions that maximise project value and mitigate risk exposure.
Specialist advice
Our team has many years of experience advising clients on complex, long term projects in a diverse range of industries and sectors, including:
- Transport: toll roads, heavy and light rail, airports, shipping ports, pipelines
- Property Development; Accommodation: hospitals, schools, prisons, government facilities
- Water; Tourism: water services and projects, tourism facilities
- Telecommunications; Information Technology
- Energy: natural resources (oil and gas), renewable energy, electricity
- Project Financing: conventional and corporate financing
We offer a broad range of advice crucial to your project, including financing, environmental, regulation, taxation, contracting and dispute resolution.
Our service is fully integrated, so clients benefit from a team that understands the context of each project. We can provide support every step of the way, from inception to delivery.
We add value by working in partnership with our clients, providing expert legal advice and guidance on complex matters to secure the best methods of structuring and financing the transaction.
Our lawyers have helped to create precedent-setting project documentation and have first-hand experience with the structures and solutions that meet the needs of our diverse client base.
Our clients
We represent the entire range of project clients.
We have advised on the structuring, negotiation and documentation of projects being developed or financed by banks and other financial institutions, including development finance institutions and export credit agencies (ECAs), contractors, project sponsors and government institutions and agencies.
We act for government departments and agencies and our continual interaction with areas of law that regulate government has led to our team being retained to advise on public procurement, municipal and public finance projects, restructuring of state owned enterprises, divestures of state assets and related matters.
Our Africa practice
Our Projects and Infrastructure team acts extensively in South Africa and across the African continent.
As the South African member firm of DLA Piper Africa Group, we are uniquely positioned in terms of our ability to provide legal services for cross-border projects. We often partner with the local DLA Piper affiliate firms in Africa.
With a strong team of lawyers we can call on across Africa, and globally, we are able to project manage the specialist expertise of lawyers in different jurisdictions to provide integrated, cost effective advice in a number of commercial and legal environments. Having lawyers on hand with first-hand experience of the structures that suit local and international financial institutions, we can deliver bankable projects.
We are able to prepare documents that comply with British or French law, as many African countries require.
We are able to provide desalination expertise from the Middle East energy sector and have expertise across the project value chain.
We can assist with strategic planning, tender and procurement negotiations and evaluation, and provide advice to ensure project structures contribute to achieving their commercial objectives.
Our services
Our advice encompasses all matters that could impact on projects such as:
- Concessions
- Licensing
- Environmental law
- Exchange control
- Repatriation of foreign investment
- Insurance
- Investment structuring
- Regulatory compliance
- Tax
Public Private Partnership (PPP) specialisation: Our team has substantial experience of representing governments in structuring PPP projects. We are well versed in drafting policy frameworks and enabling legislation, preparing feasibility reports, and procuring, negotiating and financing major infrastructure and utility projects.
Our PPP experience cuts across all key sectors and includes accommodation-based, prisons, hospitals, fleet outsourcing and rapid rail commuter PPPs in South and Southern Africa. Most of these PPPs have been procured under the PPP regulatory framework, Treasury Regulation 16 to the Public Finance Management Act, 1999, the National Treasury's PPP Manual and the Standardised Contract Terms for PPPs.
Financing: We have many years of experience executing all manner of infrastructure finance, including traditional debt lending, project finance, private placements, municipal finance, structured finance and other lending and tax exempt financing structures tailored for the current market. We take a proactive role in understanding project economics and are skilled at crafting innovative solutions to mitigate or credit enhance risks.
Procurement: Proper procurement is key to financings, particularly in Africa. Our procurement team handles all types of public sector bidding, award, contracting and related issues key to various bidding scenarios.