Corporate
Your cap table is a governance document
It records who owns the company. It also records, quietly, who can stop it from doing anything.
AOAdaeze N. Obi
02 — Practice area
Corporate and commercial lawyers in Lagos
We advise companies and their boards on the decisions that are difficult to reverse — an acquisition, a joint venture, a shareholder who will not sign. Most corporate disputes we are asked to run trace back to a document drafted in an afternoon years earlier.
Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures
Share and asset purchases, joint venture structuring, due diligence, and the completion mechanics that decide who carries the risk between signing and closing.
Company secretarial and CAC compliance
Annual returns, statutory registers, board and shareholder resolutions, and changes to directors or share capital — filed correctly and on time, so a transaction is never held up by an out-of-date register.
Board governance and shareholders’ agreements
Constitutional documents, protective provisions, reserved matters and deadlock mechanics. We map who actually has to say yes before you plan a transaction, not during one.
Shareholder and boardroom disputes
Oppression and unfair prejudice claims, derivative actions, and the negotiated exits that resolve most of these before a court is involved.
Common questions
What are the annual filing obligations for a Nigerian company?
Every company must file annual returns at the CAC and keep its statutory registers current. Late filing attracts penalties and, more practically, stalls any transaction where a buyer or investor runs diligence.
Do I need a shareholders’ agreement if I already have Articles?
Usually yes. Articles are public and general; a shareholders’ agreement is private and can deal with deadlock, exits, non-compete and information rights in ways the Articles cannot.
Writing on corporate
All writing →Who you would work with
Adaeze N. Obi
Managing Partner — Startup & Corporate
Twelve years across venture financings and cross-border M&A. Sits on the other side of the table often enough to know where it bends.
Writing →Portrait — T. Eze
Tobenna Eze
Partner — Oil & Gas
Fifteen years in upstream contracting and licensing. Reads a JOA the way other people read a menu.
Writing →Portrait — H. Bala
Halima Bala
Partner — Criminal Litigation
Former prosecutor. Now spends her days undoing the case files she once built.
Writing →Portrait — N. Ilo
Ngozi Ilo
Senior Associate — Real Estate
Title work, perfection, and the long unglamorous march through the land registry.
Writing →01StartupFormation, cap tables, SAFEs and priced rounds, ESOPs — and the terms founders sign at 2am and regret at Series A.03Property Lawnew one nowwwwwwwwwww04Oil & GasUpstream and midstream contracting, licensing rounds, local content compliance, and arbitration when the JOA fails.05Criminal LitigationBail applications, trial defence, appeals — and quiet resolutions reached before a charge is ever filed.