Elo Adhekpukoli is a Senior Associate and a member of the firm’s mergers and acquisitions, private equity, oil, gas, and sports teams.

He specialises in cross-border and domestic equity and asset investments, divestments, business restructuring and recovery, due diligence investigations, regulatory compliance matters, and dispute resolution. He is instrumental in advising major multinational oil and gas service providers on local content compliance issues in deepwater operations. Elo is skilled at breaking transaction deadlocks and has a near impeccable record in formulating case-winning strategies in litigation and arbitration processes.

Elo was also a crucial part of the team that advised OSM Maritime Group, a leading global vessel management and maritime services provider in a cross-border merger with Thome Group to create a sector-leading global vessel management business with over 30,000 staff and operations in 22 countries across the world. He was also a co-team lead in the multidisciplinary consortium that advised the seller in the resale of an electricity distribution company, including supervising the virtual and on-site vendor legal due diligence, acting as secretary of the bid evaluation committee that assessed the potential buyers, and formulating risk management and control measures during drafting and negotiation of the transaction documents, specifically the shareholders’ agreement, share purchase agreement and performance agreement to address insurgency and force majeure concerns to get the deal through after a deadlock that lasted for about two years. He was a crucial part of a dispute resolution team that successfully challenged the transfer of corporate criminal liability after a merger involving First City Monument Bank in a novel case in Nigeria, relying on English and American case law and legislation to logically establish the gap under Nigerian law that made such transfer legally impossible in Nigeria.

Elo is currently part of the team advising on transactions involving investments in the development of a sports and entertainment facility in Lagos, the acquisition of one of Nigeria’s prolific onshore oil blocks by a multinational oil company and the acquisition of a major Nigerian music record label by a major global music label.