Anthony Idigbe, SAN
Anthony Idigbe is the firm’s Senior Partner, who chairs the Board of Partners. He deals primarily with litigation (commercial, especially in capital market, mergers and acquisition, property and construction, intellectual property, elections, banking and finance, insolvency, constitutional and administrative law); insolvency (business restructuring, receivership, debt recovery, insolvency litigation including cross-border insolvency matters); capital market (private placement, initial public offers, bonds and debentures, mergers and acquisition, special placing, de-mergers and restructuring, dealings with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and appearance before the Investment and Securities Tribunal) and arbitration (claimant’s counsel, respondent’s counsel, presiding arbitrator). He has also been involved as lead counsel in many ‘big ticket’ briefs in litigation in Nigeria such as the Kano Trovan Clinical Trial Cases involving the world’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturing company. Other significant transactions involve banking, capital markets, oil and gas, construction/public-private partnerships; advisory/regulatory matters for government institutions, amongst others. He also has extensive experience in insolvency litigation and has acted for several institutions, including multinational companies and state enterprises, creditors and debtors alike. His involvement includes engagement in most of the litigation, both civil and criminal, arising from the 2008-2009 bank crisis in Nigeria. He was appointed in 2013 as the National Coordinator for Nigeria, World Bank Global Forum of Law, Justice and Development Project on Treatment of Shareholders’ Rights in Insolvency of Companies (2013-2014). Anthony Idigbe also has extensive experience in arbitration, particularly in oil and gas, and has been involved in various commercial arbitrations (including ICC arbitrations), in the capacity of chairman, member, counsel or party representative. He is a member of ICC Nigeria National Committee on Arbitration and was chairman of the ICC Nigeria Mediation Rules Launch Sub-committee in 2014. His appointments as arbitrator has extended to disputes between venture partners over oil mining licenses and asset acquisition disputes. He has been appointed by various parties including national oil company, independent oil companies and arbitral institutions. He was appointed in 2013 as a member of the Presidential Special Committee on Oil Revenue, to review the nation’s oil revenue challenges.
