Overview
Kenna Partners. | January 30th, 2015
Dr. Oscar Nliam, Associate Partner, Kenna Partners delivered a lecture on ‘Due Diligence and Documentation in International Business’ at the training organised by the Commercial Law Development Services (CLDS) on the Procedures and Documentation in International Transactions on Thursday January 29, 2015 in Lagos.
According to him, for cross border transactions, the law plays a pivotal role in that it assists the parties in the recognition of the international dimension of commerce by the application of specialised rules of conflict of laws, the admittance of practice and rules of international organisations (such as International Chamber of Commerce, the UNCITRAL). Also it helps to ensure certainty in the regulation of the parties’ rights and obligations by ensuring consistency with precedent and predictability.
Speaking on due diligence in international Business, Dr. Nliam stated that due diligence is an investigation or analysis which aims to identify those risks that will enable a purchaser or investor to decide whether to go ahead with a deal/transaction or not and if so, to determine the most appropriate means of building protection into the deal or transaction. He further stated that due diligence connotes a fact based assessment of value creation potential of a transaction.
Dr. Nliam, also gave a lecture on ‘Dispute resolution in International Commercial Transaction’. According to him several nations such as China, the United States of America and Europe have recognised the use of Arbitration as a viable means of dispute Resolution. He further stated that parties should explore the possibility of engaging in a formal dispute-resolution process such as mediation before going to court. He encouraged the participants to approach dispute resolution in international commercial transactions as a problem to be solved rather than as a battle to be won. In conclusion, he noted that disputes should be resolved to achieve “a handshake” i.e a win – win situation.
