NBA- ICLE PARTNERS WITH NIGERIAN LNG FOR FINTECH AND OTHER STRATEGIC LEGAL TRAINING FOR LAWYERS

The Nigerian Bar Association Institute of Continuing Legal Education (NBA-ICLE) is pleased to announce its collaboration with the NLNG Legal Learning Academy (NLLA) of Nigeria’s foremost gas company – Nigeria LNG Limited. This collaboration will provide trainings and knowledge sharing events for Nigerian lawyers in contemporary areas of law practice including corporate governance, fintech, the energy transition and several other areas of interest at no cost to members of the Nigerian Bar Association.

The collaboration which will involve notable local and international knowledge partners will commence with a 3-day training series on Fintech which will run from 7th June to 9th June 2022. The training faculty will feature subject matter experts drawn from Nigeria and the United States including Alexandra C. Scheibe; Joseph B Evans; Daley Epstien and Aaron Brogan from McDermot Will & Emery; Damilola Salawu and Kofoworola Toriola of Olaniwun Ajayi LP; Babajimi Ayorinde of TNP and Davidson Oturu of Aelex.

The inaugural series will cover topics such as regulatory environment for digital assets and cryptocurrency; current trends in digital assets litigation and enforcement; digital assets investors’ rights, disputes and class actions; anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (aml/cft) risks and compliance for fintech companies; data protection and other interesting topics.

According to Mr. Tobenna Erojikwe, Chairman of the Governing Council of the NBA-ICLE “I am very pleased with this partnership that we have entered with the NLLA and all our knowledge partners. Nigeria remains a country of interest for startup companies and tech investors and our goal at the NBA – CLE is to increase the knowledge base of Nigerian lawyers in these and other areas of contemporary law practice so that Nigerian lawyers can play an active role in this space and control a large share of the legal-tech services market. Such growth in knowledge is not only useful to the clients that we serve but is key to improving the financial wellbeing of our lawyers”.

In addition to the Fintech training, which would be virtual, the NBA and the NLLA have agreed that a number of physical training sessions will also be held in Port Harcourt to cover key areas that should be of interest to lawyers who practice in Port Harcourt and its environs where NLNG has most of its operations. In the words of Mr. Akachukwu Nwokedi, General Counsel of NLNG and Dean of the NLLA, “The objective of the NLLA has been to continuously and proactively update the competencies of our in-house counsel on contemporary issues in our areas of operation. This collaboration with the NBA-ICLE will bring the resources of the NLLA to lawyers in Nigeria, and in line with NLNG’s vision of ‘helping to build a better Nigeria’, deepen knowledge, capacity and competencies in the kind of legal subjects that are of interest to NLNG and similar companies operating in Nigeria and internationally. This will in no small way help Nigerian lawyers better position themselves to compete for and win legal work in the energy and other emerging high value sectors of the Nigerian economy”.

This training series is part of the different learning, knowledge sharing and capacity building sessions that the NBA-ICLE has organized for Nigerian lawyers since its Governing Council was constituted by the NBA President – Mr. Olumide Akpata about a year ago.