COMMERCIAL law firm Bowman Gilfillan announced plans yesterday to set up a significant presence in east Africa by entering into an association with Kenyan law firm Coulson Harney.

"Over the past five years, Bowman Gilfillan has been at the forefront of advising corporates, financial institutions and governments on the African continent," said Jonathan Schlosberg, the chairman of Bowman Gilfillan.

Jonathan Lang, head of the firm's Africa Group, formerly a partner at London magic circle (the five top UK law firms ) firm Allen & Overy, said that the firm was in the process of pursuing a strategy of extending its pan-African reach, and the association was a significant step in this direction.

The association between the two law firms was a different move from the mergers that had taken place in the South African legal market recently. "We are establishing a significant presence in east Africa," Lang said.

It was unfortunate that the firm could not enter into a merger with the Kenyan law firm, Lang said. In Kenya, only advocates could be members of law firms. And Law Society rules in SA prohibited attorneys from entering into mergers with advocates, Lang explained.

Richard Harney and Philip Coulson were two former UK barristers who could appear in the high court in Kenya. Their English law qualifications would provide a lift to the firm's Africa practice, where many transactions were governed by English law, Lang said. English law was applied in many countries in Africa. It was recognised as a top-class (legal) system, he said.

There was a lot of business interest in Africa from countries such as the US, China, India and Europe. Lang said local law firms were having to compete with foreign firms, such as French ones, for work.

The work in Africa included mergers and acquisitions, private equity deals, privatisations, infrastructure and project finance.

Lang said Bowman Gilfillan was looking with interest at some of the Francophone countries. It recently advised Standard Bank on the acquisition of Nigeria Bank IBTC Chartered and the Botswana government on the attempted privatisation of Air Botswana.