Debt Recovery in West Africa
You have delivered the goods, performed the service or completed the works. The invoice fell due weeks ago. Your debtor is a company established in West Africa and the payment has not arrived. Kafui & Partners acts for foreign creditors in exactly that position, through lawyers admitted before the courts of each country where the debtor holds assets.
One legal framework, seventeen countries
Seventeen African States share a single body of business law under OHADA. Debt recovery is governed there by the Uniform Act on Simplified Recovery Procedures and Enforcement Measures, which applies in identical terms in Cotonou, Dakar, Abidjan, Bamako, Ouagadougou, Niamey and Lome. The procedures, the time limits and the remedies do not change from one capital to the next. Nigeria sits outside OHADA and follows common law, where we proceed instead by way of the undefended list procedure and garnishee proceedings.
The procedures we use
Payment order. Where the claim is certain, liquidated and due, the president of the commercial court may order the debtor to pay on the strength of the file alone, without hearing him first. The order is then served, and the debtor has fifteen days to object.
Conservatory attachment. Where assets risk being moved or dissipated, the court may authorise the freezing of bank accounts, receivables or equipment before any judgment on the merits. It secures the position while the claim is being decided.
Enforcement. Once an enforceable title is in hand, we attach the accounts the debtor holds with local banks, the sums owed to him by his own clients, and where necessary his movable and immovable property.
Recognition of foreign decisions. A judgment or an arbitral award obtained abroad produces no effect locally until exequatur is granted. We handle that application and the enforcement measures that follow.
What we need to open a file
The invoices and the underlying contract or purchase order. Evidence of delivery or performance. The correspondence exchanged with the debtor. The debtor's exact corporate name and registered address. From those documents we determine whether the claim qualifies for a payment order, which assets can realistically be reached, and which procedure should be started first. That assessment reaches you before any step is taken.
How we work
Every file is conducted by a lawyer admitted in the country concerned, within our network covering Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo. You keep a single English-speaking contact, whatever the number of jurisdictions your file ends up touching. Our fees combine a flat fee for the procedural work with a success fee on the sums actually recovered, on a basis agreed in writing before anything begins.
Send us the file
Send the invoices and the contract to services@kafuipartners.com. We will tell you what can be done, in what order, and at what cost.