SERVICES

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP provides dispute resolution and contracts legal services to aviation industry players. We have advised and developed agreements for airplane leasing services to enable our client to secure a business to carry passengers within the Republic of Kenya and cross-border. The aircraft leasing processes enable most players in the market to take advantage of possible loopholes that players in the market are not keen on or shy away from due to budget constraints.

Our goal is to understand the client’s needs and future plans, which we translate and blend with the relevant laws that impact the intended operation. Thereafter, provide the needed contracts that may help guide the intended practice under aviation law.

Aviation law legal service is developing tremendously fast, considering unmanned aircraft and drones that are essential for security purposes and videography. These activities result in actions that interact with the various rights of various people. Our services extend to providing the needed legal services to all these groups of persons.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP, our constitutional lawyers provide representation on matters falling under constitutional law. The Constitution is the building block of other legislations. It is a requirement that any other legislation, policy, code, or regulation must comply with the Constitution and the progressive requirements. Our practice entails a keen analytical approach to constitutional disputes or possible infringements and approaching the relevant judicial or quasi-judicial organs. The relevant Courts of the first instance include the employment and labour relations, land and environmental court, high court (and its relevant divisions), and magistrate’s court.

The progressive development of policies results in delegating duties to other entities to handle disputes through tribunals while the high court handles the matters as an appellate court. Our constitutional lawyers are ready to offer representation in any of these forums upon defining the dispute and the remedies to be sort considering other legislation provide discretion to access the relevant superior court without necessarily exhausting all the subordinate court or tribunals.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP provides dedicated corporate governance services to undertakings that are serious about their operations and require extensive preventive legal services. The service covers all laws that affect or effect the operations of an undertaking. Further, the service is also suitable for companies that require to access new markets in foreign jurisdictions.

Corporate governance covers various categorized areas of law such as company law; taxation laws; employment laws; environment and land laws; capital markets/ securities laws; intellectual property laws; sector-specific laws; and other laws. It enables an undertaking to have an inception and matrix report that will help enhance compliance measures within the undertaking.

We have provided these services to various entities that have an interest in entering the Kenyan market. Also, one of our partners was closely involved in a task requiring conducting Corporate Compliance towards Centum Investment Plc (inclusive of about 13 subsidiaries).

Our service is refined from complex transactions and experiences, which we keep developing every day to ensure that all that is provided to a client is up to date and worth relying on.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP has advised more than ten entities engaging in cryptocurrency or digital assets during the popular releases of Initial Coin Offerings (ICO)/ Initial Token Offering (ITO). We have a deep understanding of the cryptocurrency and digital assets markets, offering advisory, contracts, and dispute resolution services to entities operating under such realms.

Our services range from corporate structuring on how to set up business entities that will engage in cryptocurrency/ digital assets related ventures, providing and selecting jurisdiction based on the jurisdictions approach on digital assets, providing the needed compliance checks against the available laws that help define and categories various cryptocurrency/ digital assets structures and dispute resolution services.

Cryptocurrency / digital assets have been attracting regularisation in various jurisdictions due to various unprecedented activities like crimes. We have a thorough understanding of the market and applicable operations that enable us to provide the much-needed legal services within this realm.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP provides extensive advisory, regulatory monitoring, dispute resolution, and compliance measures for business entities falling under the cyberspace and telecommunication law. In Kenya, the primary regulators are the Communication Authority and Kenya Space Agency. Our services extend to advising cross-border entities such as a South African Layer 3 Internet Service Provider (ISP) had a contractual dispute with Layer 1 ISP that had failed to commit to onboarding new prospects resulting in tremendous losses.

We have guided a Belgian company on understanding how some of its services fall under the service products that are regulated by the Communication Authority and how it is best to comply with the law and its implication on the telecommunication licensing.

Our services are meant to ease the operations of any telecommunication undertaking; hence, we ensure that we not only understand what affects a client’s business but also ensure the client equally has an understanding of how, and why the law affects the undertaking.

This category also covers privacy law and data protection regulations or laws. It is evident that the market is flooded by everyone who may merely have read a few notes or clauses on data laws and now claiming to be knowledgeable of data protection laws, our team has heavily interacted with the practical side of the development of software, applications, and business to enable our team to be in a good position to advise a Client and effective hold a discussion with the client’s developers to enhance compliance measures.

Our service is extending to the now commercialization of space under what is known as Space Tourism whereby the likes of Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson and Mr. Jeff Bezos have successfully shown their capabilities to engage in Space Tourism. These activities boost the need urge to develop laws that will guide such activities considering the existing loopholes under Cruise Ship Tourism as under International Waters.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP provides dedicated electoral law services, which include developing strategies from point A – Z concerning the electoral process (includes dispute resolution). It is essential to note that electoral law is a substantive-based law that requires procedures to be adhered to the letter and spirit of the law. We have previously represented New Democrats, a political party registered in the Republic of Kenya as per the Political Parties Act.

One of our partners has previously been actively involved in electoral laws pertaining to the first presidential election petition of the year 2017, a dispute concerning constitutional rights of diaspora voters, gubernatorial disputes, among others where the Senior Partner handling the matters was representing Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

Our strategic approach under this category involves mapping out the known or consistent disputes establishing the various strategies on how to tackle any possible disputes. Our team is always analyzing the electoral law and judicial precedence development to ensure that we are always ready to defend interests that require representation before an internal disciplinary body, tribunal, appellate organ, subordinate or superior courts.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP provides advisory, regulatory and litigation-based services on matters touching on employment law. Our services are either preventive, whereby we assist corporates to avoid litigation and if it occurs, the corporate entity has a higher chance of securing a win out of that dispute, and a developing a strategy to enhance an employee or former employee win a case based on well-structured action that is within the law.

Our strategies have resulted in having quick settlements where an ex-employee we are representing was affected by the termination model and where a corporate is a client, the advisors of the complainant have always considered advising the complainant there is no case. It is essential to understand the dynamics of employment law in order to provide effective services.

We are conversant with the ever-developing employment law in the Republic of Kenya and always ready to defend any claims arising within those new areas of law. It is essential to understand that employment law is now interacting with other scopes such as data laws, computer crimes laws, administrative laws, constitutional, tortious claims (like defamation), among others. Our service is to collect facts and interlink with the relevant laws or regulations for better representation.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP offers unique legal services that focus on advancing fashion, media & entertainment law. In the Kenyan market, like most other African markets, the aspect of fashion, media, and entertainment law has not been seriously taken care of and most of the key players seem ignorant until when something goes wrong.

Our service model is both preventive and defensive depending on what stage or type of dispute our services are invoked. These services are meant to ensure that the African players in these fields are well protected and be assured to transact on their content in the near future or through trusts established to hold their intangible assets that generate value day in day out. There have been recorded reports from reputable media outlets, and government agencies on how entertainment content has been transacted on and artists had less control over those contents, for instance, Tylor Swift’s content being sold/rented for more than US$300M and Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album sold for over US$2M. Also, there are cases like that of one of the world’s greatest stand-up comedians such as Dave Chappelle’s whereby many of his rights and revenue were limited through a contract.

Our interest is to provide exemplary services to clients who understand the worth of their work or are interested in understanding the worth of their work. The market dynamics may be different; however, a smart approach on matters touching fashion, media, and entertainment law.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP provides extensive services on matters touching on gambling law in the Republic of Kenya such as advisory, dispute resolution, licensing, and corporate structures. Our previous engagement was with entities like Millionaires Casino, which is considered the biggest casino in East & Central Africa. Our relationship was providing representation and advisory services that touch on their operations.

We have advised Germany-based entrepreneurs who were interested in initiating gambling-related business ventures in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. Our advice was to define their product as per the law and provide the needed regulatory requirements.

We have provided advisory and representation on gambling laws to a Client who was contesting how one of the betting companies in Kenya had unlawfully withheld her funds contrary to the provisions of the law and the policies. The dispute arose as a result of a glitch unknown to our client that had occurred to the betting company’s PaaS/SaaS that hosted a number of virtual games that our client had actively engaged in when she won the prize.

We understand the Gambling landscape and also have established relationships with PaaS/SaaS game providers who can assist in managing various portfolios for a person venturing in the gambling business. Our goal is to ensure that a Client has a chance to go for what fits their interest.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP has had the benefit to advise on various government-based contracts and Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). Our recent consultation was with the Procurement Team representing the Republic of Uganda on its intended exploration of oil that was discovered in the Republic of Uganda. Our oil & gas team provided guidance on matters touching on procurement models, alternative dispute resolution mechanism, particularly where a government is interacting with a multinational company, multitiered dispute resolution mechanism based on value and parties involved, issuing on stabilization clauses as always asked by foreign entities, among others. The Republic of Uganda has now signed an agreement with Total Energies for purposes of the oil pipeline.

Our objective is to provide business-oriented solutions that are sustainable to the needs of a client. We have a deep understanding of the political, social, economic, or religious factors that may affect operations of various PPPs or government to private person contracts. As a result, our advisory majors on providing preventive legal services and cushions that a client may fall on should the relationship tremendously fail to work out.

Our oil & gas legal services to either a person or government (including its respective agencies) is on how to interact with one another, what to factor in, and the best terms of working together. Further, our solutions are localized to enable the malleability of a new entrant’s operations.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP: our immigration lawyers provide immigration services in four models: corporate immigration, immigration services pertaining to the services offered by the Government of Kenya, documentation and appeals on applications for visas through embassies/consulates, and residence/citizenship by investment.

Corporate Immigration: these services relate to entities that intend to set up a presence in Kenya or interact with the Kenyan market through an establishment or online. Our services are comprehensive as we provide A-Z advisory, representation, service provision, and liaising with government agencies to ensure that all goes as planned. The service includes the applications pertaining to various permits that the government of Kenya offers.

Further, our immigration lawyers have a network of lawyers in place who can assist Kenyan businesses or investors in establishing a presence in other foreign countries through residence/ citizenship investment programs.

Immigration Offices Kenya: we assist in making applications and liaising with the relevant government offices/ departments to ensure that the immigration process is successfully conducted and secure the requisite documents. Also, we advise and provide appellate services if the Immigration Office has declined an application or renewal for a permit.

Immigration through Embassies/Consulates: Most individuals are interested in securing various types of visas from various governments for their own personal interests; however, there are always grey areas on how to document applications and enhance the element of consistency throughout the application process. As a result, our immigration lawyers provide advisory and documentation analysis services to individuals interested in accessing visas.

Our services extend to providing appellate advisory and documentation services when a person’s application has been declined, and there is room to appeal. Our office will consider the critical issues and interview the Client to consider whether to consider the appeal or drop the whole process entirely - immigration lawyers.

Intellectual Property (IP) entails several categories that operate separately or intertwining with others. We provide both contractual, registration, and dispute resolutions services on matters touching on IP. We have an impressive record in advising, and defending clients on the following:

Image Rights: we have assisted various clients on settlements that touch in their image and likeness. In most instances, it is where the client does not have the copyright to an image, but legally, the image and likeness of that person can only be utilized upon the person issues consent for that image to be used in a defined manner.

We also have ongoing cases before the courts that touch on image rights, which blends with other factors like privacy and data rights.

Copyright (intellectual property) : we provide guidance and registration services on matters touching various types of copyright that an individual is interested in protecting. We have represented one of the biggest insurance entities in Kenya on a copyright breach worth US$1.46M.

Patent legal services: we provide patent (intellectual property) search services, monitoring, and registration services. The service extends to analysing content concerning plant-based patents and providing the needed regulatory requirements.

Trademark legal services: we have advised and assisted a US-based client to draft the necessary defense to file before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the United States Patent and Trademark Office), which resulted in a win.

We have secured incredible settlements for clients who were said to be offering products that were counterfeit on some of the top eCommerce platforms in the world. We presented various defenses that allowed the parties to reach a reasonable conclusion and stalled any future or possible suit or prosecution against our Clients.

Domain & Trademark: we have secured various rights for clients who brand companies-initiated processes to unlawfully take away the domain names that some of our Clients had already registered and use in various business ventures. Trademark & Domain disputes are addressed expeditiously through reserved forums like World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), ADR Forum, Czech Alternative Dispute Resolution, among others.

Trademark Watchdog Services: we provide extensive services to owners of trademarks in Kenya by monitoring any possibility of infringement of their trademark and generating monthly status reports.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP provides advisory, regulatory, dispute resolutions representation, and strategies on engaging the Competition Authority of Kenya. We also consider the preferred models to handle businesses that seem to need further permissions from sector-specific regulators in their industry of operations. Considering Kenya is generally a small market, a lot of parties will always take a keen interest in various mergers and acquisitions that require the approval of the Competition Authority.

Sector-specific regulators include the likes of Capital Markets Authority, Central Bank of Kenya, Communication Authority, Energy Regulatory Commission, Insurance Regulatory Authority, Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, Retirement Benefits Authority, to mention a few. These regulators always have a say in the various intended mergers and acquisitions considering the licenses issued by the regulators always come with pre-conditions and focus on the initial applicant.

The Competition Authority, among many other factors, will always consider the economic power and status of the staff. Therefore, there is a high likelihood of arousing various political, social, and economic interests across the market, which means that an intended mergers and acquisitions process may be defeated without focusing on the actual merit. Our service is alive to these factors and provides pre-disclosures advisory that will lead to developing a strategic approach towards an intended M&A that may trigger the mention areas of the law.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP represents clients on matters touching on product liability. We provide the needed guidance to enhance enough and reasonable scientific data to enable the courts to have an approach that is from experts and also avoid providing unreliable data to the court. Scientific data establish contamination or the ailment being as a result of a certain product that is directly resulting from a specific product.

The scientific data also helps in interlinking possible future medical challenges that one may experience as a result of utilizing that product or being offered a service. It is essential to note that while the courts appreciate these expert materials, it is not always the final mark as the courts take such information to guide in it but not bind it.

Product liability claims are somewhat not that taken seriously in the Republic of Kenya regardless of the numerous cases of various undertakings providing individuals with products or services that are below the required standards or hazardous to the end-user of the product or the service. We break these barriers by providing the needed and dedicated legal services to individuals that are affected by these products.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP has engaged in construction financing-based projects. Our biggest landowner and financier transaction was for a real estate project worth US$200M. Our team was secured for purposes of advising the landowner, developing the head of terms, and developing the joint venture agreement, which would later result in property transfers to a new entity, opening of bank accounts, and transfer of commitment fees on escrow before providing shares to the financier’s preferred special vehicle holding company.

We have the benefit of understanding the local factors that affect most prime lands within the Republic of Kenya. To deal in such projects, we provide comprehensive due diligence services that enhance a person’s capability to make an informed decision. One of our partners was involved in an assignment that required to conduct due diligence against a property before an investor would purchase it for US$10M; however, when conducting due diligence, it was noted that the property had been subject to two disputes with the government, which had never been settled to that very date.

Our service delivery is to provide the actual and availably accurate data pertaining to the real estate-oriented services we are rendering at that material time to merely inform the client.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP has developed structures to effectively guide/advise and represent clients on matters touching on securities markets. We provided regulatory advice to Bangi Inc., a United States of America (the US) company, focusing on investing in marijuana investment products. The company, which had a board of directors made of the likes of William Norwood Jr (rapper Ray J), Matthew Knowles (Beyonce’s father), Hill Harper, among others, secured a comprehensive regulatory and policy guidance on how best to enter the Kenyan market through cross-listing at Kenya’s NSE bourse.

One of our partners has previously been involved in advising, engaging the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) to secure authorization and licenses for a Fund Manager.

The CMA, as the securities market regulator, provides a series of regulations that touch on various markets such as listing, fund managers, collective investment schemes, derivative markets, disciplinary actions, to mention a few. Our service model entails A – Z provision of services or where a prospect would prefer our office to pick up from to a defined conclusion.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP has been previously advised on cross-border tax structures considering the limited number of Double Tax Agreements/Treaties that the Republic of Kenya has with other countries. We provide tax structuring, and dispute resolution services to local and foreign persons. Our recent assignment was to advise a Belgian company on how it would best enter the Kenyan market and the best tax law structures to secure its interests without being considered as an entity engaging in tax evasion.

We have previously assisted a South African businessman with a company in Kenya on how to best exercise its option under the Double Tax Law Agreement, how to categories the pay-out under the royalties and licenses. Tax is essential presented in two models, which are direct and indirect taxes. The applicable rates may vary depending on the structures one uses to operate, and other rates remain constant across the industry. Our service is to enable a client to understand these taxes and the implications, which a client can base on to make a decision on how it/he/she would like to move forward upon securing advice.

Ong’anya Ombo Advocates LLP provides comprehensive legal service on matters white-collar crimes whether it’s the government against and private person or private person against a private person. Our current matters include the representation of persons falsely accused of white-collar or economic crimes against Kenya Power and Lighting Company PLC.

We have previously represented an individual accused of hacking or unauthorized access to a bank account in Stanbic (KE), which was later transferred to Equity Bank (KE) and finally to KCB (KE). On the contrary, our client’s account had been hacked by unknown third parties resulting in his account being used as a middleman account for the criminal act before transferring to the drop account. The Court determined that our client was/is not criminally liable and was set free.

Our team is well versed with transactions and forensics falling within the realm of white-collar crime. Hence, our service model is detailed enough to ensure that the intended interests of a person are well-considered and defended within the law while considering the technological advancement that may confuse those who have no grasp of the elements under white-collar crimes. Further, other than being knowledgeable in this field, we also adopt expert witnesses to provide a detailed pictorial view of the issue at hand when necessary.