Aviation

An international airline

The firm prepared the complete documentation required for the carrier to reach full operational status in Somalia, including the governmental licensing arrangements, and advised on aviation law, corporate structure and the double-taxation questions that cross-border carriers face. On the contentious side it handled high-value civil aviation liability claims, including the analysis of Somali jurisdiction rules on wrongful death and the assessment of damages. The engagement ran across the operational, tax and disputes sides of the airline in parallel.

A sovereign government

The firm acted as co-counsel to a sovereign government in an international commercial arbitration seated in Europe, with roughly 157 million euros in dispute under a public infrastructure contract. Its contribution centred on Somali constitutional and administrative law: whether the contractual commitments in question were validly entered into given the approvals that state institutions are required to give, and what the consequences are when that process is not followed. The work combined close analysis of the domestic legal framework with the practical demands of an international arbitral proceeding.

A global technology company

Instructed on the licensing and regulatory framework for landing major international connectivity infrastructure, the firm advised on submarine cable landing licences, the treatment of carrier-neutral data centres, infrastructure-sharing arrangements and the law-enforcement assistance obligations that attach to the cable. Because the landing engaged both the Federal Government and a second Somali jurisdiction, each question had to be resolved twice and reconciled. The advice was structured so that it would hold as the subsidiary regulation under the National Communications Act 2017 continues to develop.