About

The West Africa business unit of multinational beverage company, Coca-Cola, covers 32 countries in a region which is almost half of the continent’s land area and population. The organisation’s legal department spread across the Ivory Coast, Kenya and Nigeria is made up of four lawyers and two non-lawyers and is led by legal director, Antoinette Absaloms who defines the business unit’s legal strategy and coordinates overall legal department work. To deliver relevant legal services to the diverse and complex geography it covers, the Coca-Cola WABU legal function has focused on partnering with the business to capture external opportunities while hedging against risks by proactively identifying external opportunities and mitigating against risks, and strategic allocation of resources by placing primary resources around transactions that support growth in key countries, while ensuring routine services that drive efficient daily operations are in place. The legal team has gone through changes necessitated by the company’s re-organisation which led to a reduction in the numbers of associates in the department while the area of responsibility has expanded significantly both in terms of countries, as well as the work to be done. This has compelled the function to re-organise its operations to support the business agenda by redefining the areas under each legal counsel’s responsibility, setting up legal systems and controls to support the new organisation and defining respective roles in the team and leveraging on each counsel’s expertise to develop subject matter expertise within the team. The team has been involved in the acquisition of the largest juice, dairy and value added dairy player in Nigeria, through an initial acquisition of a 40% share in 2016 followed by acquiring of the remainder in January 2019. ‘This process concludes an intense multi-national bidding process, due diligence and transaction close with no adverse regulatory or operational challenges in the medium to large M&A category’, says legal counsel for West Islands and Mid Africa (WIMA), Mohamed Komara. Making up the rest of the team are legal counsel for Nigeria and Equatorial Orok Efiom, senior paralegal Evelyn Ilerhunmwuwa and legal administrative assistant Jacklyne Kivala.