CMS South Africa

Managing Partner: Riza Moosa

Number of partners: 11

Number of other fee-earners: >35

International Offices: CMS lawyers work across sectors and borders in more than 40 countries worldwide to deliver advice to you wherever you operate. We see ourselves as more than just legal advisers. We are your business partners. Our focus is on helping you mitigate risk and benefit from innovation, enabling your business or organisation to thrive.

CMS South Africa is a young, transformed, BEE Level 1 law firm with an ambitious outlook based in Johannesburg. It was established in 2018by experienced and diverse international and domestic lawyers having worked at global firms looking to establish a new commercial legal business focusing on Southern Africa.

Our objectives are to provide the highest quality legal services in our areas of expertise, develop top black local talent whilst creating an inclusive, diverse firm relevant to our clients. We have been in business for over 6 years.Our team of over 45 multi-disciplinary lawyers specialise in the full remit of legal capabilities and expertise whilst collaborating within their teams in order to provide clients with cohesive, commercial and uncluttered advice.

We focus on ensuring cost flexibility and predictability, service consistency and rapid turnaround times with no duplication of efforts or fees.

Our team is known for its versatility, creativity and agility and can assist all public and private clients,no matter the size, on complex commercial, finance and litigious matters that meet your strategic objectives.

Our cross-border capabilities include local, dual qualified team members with common and civil law backgrounds who are fluent in English, French and Portuguese.

Locally, our main areas of practice include:

• Arbitration
• Black Economic Empowerment
• Compliance
• Consumer Products
• Corporate Investigations & Forensics
• Dispute Resolution
• Domestic & cross - border Banking & Finance
• Domestic & cross - border Corporate/M&A & Commercial
• Employment & Labour
• Energy & Climate Change
• Financial Restructuring, Insolvency & Business Rescue
• Funds
• Hotels & Leisure
• Infrastructure & Projects
• Lifesciences & Healthcare
• Mining, Commodities & Natural Resources
• Private Equity
• Private Public Partnerships
• Public Procurement
• Real Estate & Conveyancing
• Tax & Exchange Control
• Telecommunications, Media & Communications

Some recent, market leading matters include:

• Engaged by African Parks as the lead legal advisors on their rewilding project. Africa’s beleaguered rhinos have been thrown a significant lifeline with the announcement on 4 September 2023 that nearly 2,000 semi-wild rhinos owned by South African rhino breeder John Hume will be “rewilded” into reserves across South Africa and other parts of the continent over the next 10 years. African Parks, a private Johannesburg-based conservation NGO that manages 22 protected areas in partnership with 12 governments across Africa, confirmed on Monday, 4 September that it had “stepped in as the new owner of the world’s largest private captive rhino breeding operation”, the Platinum Rhino project, a 7,800-hectare property in Northwest.” The scale of this undertaking is simply enormous, and therefore daunting. It is equally one of the most exciting and globally strategic conservation opportunities. We will be working with multiple governments, funding partners and conservation organisations, who are committed to making this rewilding vision a reality.
• Advised Development Bank of Southern Africa onits equity investments into two 100MW Solar PV projects with Tronox Mineral Sands as the sole off-taker. Since President Ramaphosa announced the reform of lifting the license limit for distributed generation projects from 1MW to 100MW, these projects marked the first of their kind to come online under the new energy regulatory environment in South Africa and the continent. These projects are now the largest private power purchase agreements in Africa, valued at around EUR 231m.
• Advised Exxaro Resources Limited on the disposal of two non-core assets. Our client announced its intention to reduce coal emissions across its operations as part of its strategy to address climate change. It is one of the first large scale mining houses in South Africa to put action into words by announcing the sale of its coal assets. We advised as lead advisors on the disposal of two non-core coal assets.
• Advised Agence Française de Développement (AFD) in its participation of one of Africa's first green bonds. On 2 February 2021, Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) announced the launch of its first green bond.The €200m bond was issued through a private placement with the French development finance institution, the AFD whom CMS South Africa & France advised.

We currently have offices in the heart of the Sandton district, Johannesburg:

3rd Floor

82 Maude Street

Sandton

Johannesburg, 2193

T +27 (0) 87 210 0711

E [email protected]