Insight type: Legal Alert

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a pivotal trade agreement between the United States and several sub-Saharan African nations, expired on 30 September 2025. Since its enactment in 2000, AGOA had been instrumental in strengthening United States/Africa economic ties by offering duty free access to the U.S. market for over 1,800 products from eligible African countries (in addition to more than 5,000 products previously listed under the U.S. Generalised System of Preferences, a separate and long-standing U.S. trade program that itself expired at the end of 2020).

The expiry of AGOA raises questions about the future of trade between the U.S. and East Africa, particularly for key regional players like Kenya and Tanzania. Unless AGOA is reinstated or replaced with an analogous arrangement soon, the effects of this change will likely be felt across various sectors, necessitating a strategic recalibration for these countries and their respective industries.

The High Court of Kenya recently held that property valuers owe their clients a duty of care, and if such a duty is breached through inaccurate valuation, they will be held liable to compensate their clients for losses arising from such negligence. The High Court nonetheless observed that parties relying on a valuer’s report must also conduct their own due diligence on the property to mitigate potential losses.

The UAE is a complex but increasingly important jurisdiction for cross-border enforcement. It combines an onshore Islamic civil law system conducted in Arabic with offshore English-language common law courts in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and the Abu Dhabi Global Market. The interaction between these distinct legal systems makes enforcement challenging, demanding specialist expertise and careful strategy. At the same time, the overlap between these systems provides creditors with a wider range of options to obtain freezing orders and pursue enforcement in support of domestic, foreign, or arbitral proceedings.

The Parliament of Uganda enacted the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Act, 2025 (Act No. 3 of 2025), which came into force on 15th March 2025. This legislation consolidates and replaces previous laws governing technical and vocational education and training (TVET) providers, including the repeal of the Business, Technical, Vocational Education and Training Act.

The Finance Act, 2025, effective 1 July 2025, has fundamentally reshaped Kenya’s import ecosystem by amending Section 44A of the Tax Procedures Act, 2015. This mandates a valid Certificate of Origin (CoO) for every import, irrespective of origin or trade agreement status, positioning it as a non-negotiable requirement to be enforced by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).

Nigeria’s insurance sector has been considered underdeveloped relative to the size of the economy. Persistent issues such as low penetration, weak public confidence and undercapitalisation have hindered its ability to deliver effective financial intermediation and risk protection. Previous reform attempts, ranging from revised capital thresholds to piecemeal legislative updates, sought to address these challenges but stopped short of achieving a comprehensive transformation.

On 12 September 2025, the Government of Tanzania published Government Notice No. 563, introducing the Mining (Local Content) (Amendment) Regulations, 2025 (“2025 Local Content Regulations”). These amendments significantly revise the Mining (Local Content) Regulations, 2018, which were themselves amended on 8 February 2019 and 8 July 2022 (“2018 Local Content Regulations”). The 2025 Local Content Regulations codify practices that the Mining Commission has been increasingly enforcing in practice and expand the framework governing local content compliance in the mining sector.

The Uganda Gazette of 04th July 2025 published new fiscal and Tax laws including the Income Tax (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 2025; the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, 2025; the Excise Duty (Amendment) Act, 2025; the Stamp Duty (Amendment) Act, 2025; the Tax Procedures Code (Amendment) Act, 2025; the External Trade (Amendment) Act, 2025; and the Hides and Skins (Export Duty) (Amendment) Act, 2025. These laws contain tax changes which took effect on 1 July 2025 (save for use of National Identification Numbers as Tax Identification Numbers).

 

During the first half of President Trump’s second term, familiar themes of his “America First” policy have continued to dominate the administration’s agenda. Following the expiry of the initial 90-day suspension of tariffs on 9 July 2025, and a subsequent extension to 1 August 2025, President Trump has issued a new Executive Order revising the reciprocal tariff rates.

The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) recently issued a public notice announcing the commencement of sector-by-sector investigations into organisations suspected of non-compliance with the provisions of the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 (NDPA). A total of 1,368 organisations are listed and are now required to present evidence of compliance with the NDPA within twenty-one (21) days.