Legal Regulatory

Environment of Business
Cote d’Ivoire
 What is Business Law?

• Business law is made up of the laws that set out the rights, duties and
obligations of people in business.
• Business law balances the interests of those in business and people like
producers and consumers, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers.
• It regulates business transactions under the law of contract, which explains
when an agreement will be legally enforceable as a contract and is updated by
competition and consumer law.
• It regulates those engaged in business (companies, partnerships, etc), their
names, their funding (finance, credit), their banking and their insurance. Many
aspects of criminal law (especially property offences) and tort (especially the
law of negligence) impact on business.
Legal Environment

• The legal environment

of business is the area
in which business
interacts with the legal
system.
Regulatory Components

Business Labour Property Credit

Licensing
Registration Regulations Registration Regulations

Alternative
Corporate Tax Trade Contract
Dispute
Governance Administration Facilitation Enforcement
Resolution

Competition
Bankruptcy Inspections
Policy
 Legal System of Cote d’Ivoire

Côte d’Ivoire’s constitution establishes the country as a

republic operating a unitary system of government, with a
legislature, an executive branch and an independent judiciary.

The legal system is based on the civil code tradition rather

than the British system of common law, reflecting the nation’s
history as a French colony.
 Civil law or Common law

The Ivorian legal system is based on the civil law.

Ivorian Historical background

Legal • Cote d’Ivoire became a French protectorate in 1889.
System • French civil law applied during the colonial period.
• The country gained independence in 1960 and it maintained the French
civil law system for the most part of the post-colonial period.

Traditional Law v Civil law

Both French civil law system and customary law apply as long
as customary law is not repugnant to justice and morality.
 The judicial framework is made up of
three parts.
The first is the Constitutional Court, which has exclusive
jurisdiction over constitutional issues, including the
interpretation of the constitution and the resolution of
Ivorian presidential election disputes.
Judicial The second is the civil courts, which are concerned with areas
Framework such as criminal cases, labour and employment disputes,
family law and land disputes

The third branch of the framework, the Commercial Court, is

a recent addition and represents an attempt by the
government to improve the legal system as it applies to the
business community and investors.
 Commercial Courts
The Commercial Court was established in 2012 to handle business cases and was
upgraded the following year to become the Commercial Chamber of the Court of
Appeals.

A plan to extend the court to cities other than Abidjan has yet to be realised.

Companies operating in Côte d’Ivoire also have access to an arbitration

framework, which recognizes the decisions made by foreign arbitration centres.
 Court System

The Ivorian court system has two main tiers of courts. These
include:
1. The upper courts:
• Supreme Court,
• High Court of Justice,
• States Security Court
2. The lower courts:
• Courts of Appeal,
• Courts of First Instance,
• Courts of Assize
• Justice of Peace Courts
The First Level of Jurisdiction

• These are the courts that primarily hear disputes.

• These are the Courts of First Instance and the detached sections. Côte
d'Ivoire currently has seven courts of first instance.
• The courts of first instance are in the major cities of Abidjan, Abengourou,
Bouaké, Daloa, Gagnoa, Korhogo and Man.
• They comprise a court seat, headed by a President assisted by Vice-
Presidents, Judges, Investigating Judges, Children's Judges and
Guardianship Judges, as well as a Public Prosecutor's Office placed
under the authority of a Public Prosecutor assisted by Deputy Public
Prosecutors and Assistant Public Prosecutors.
 The Second Level of
Jurisdiction

• These are the Courts of Appeal.

• There are three of them, located in Abidjan, Bouaké and Daloa.
• The Courts of Appeal hear appeals against decisions rendered by the Courts of First Instance and
their detached sections.
• The jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal of Abidjan covers the Courts of First Instance of Abidjan and
Abengourou, as well as their detached sections.
• The jurisdiction of the Bouaké Court of Appeal covers the Courts of Bouaké and Korhogo, and their
detached sections.
• As for the Court of Appeal of Daloa, it covers the Courts of First Instance of Daloa, Man and Gagnoa,
as well as their detached sections. Each Court of Appeal is composed of a head office and a public
prosecutor's office.
• The seat, placed under the authority of a First President, is subdivided into chambers each headed
by a President of the chamber assisted by Councillors.
• The Public Prosecutor's Office is headed by a Public Prosecutor with Advocates General and Deputy
Advocates General under him.
The Third Level
of Jurisdiction
•In this category,
we have:
• The Supreme Court
• The High Court of
Justice.
The Supreme
Court
• The Supreme Court includes the Court of Cassation, the
Council of State and the Court of Auditors.
• There is only one and its seat is in Abidjan.
• It hears appeals against judgments handed down by the
Courts of Appeal, or against judgments handed down at last
instance by the Courts of First Instance or their sections. The
Supreme Court is composed of a headquarters, a Public
Prosecutor's Office and a General Secretariat.
• The seat, placed under the authority of the President, is
subdivided into three chambers:
• Judicial, Administrative and Accounts.
• The Judicial Chamber, which is the Court of Cassation,
hears appeals in cassation against the final decisions
of the courts of first instance, the detached sections
and the judgments of the Courts of Appeal.
The Supreme Court
• The Administrative Chamber,
• which is the Council of State, hears appeals in cassation against decisions rendered at
last instance in proceedings in which a legal person under public law is a party, and
appeals for annulment on the grounds of excess of power lodged against the
decisions of administrative authorities.
• The audit chamber is the Court of Audit.
• It controls the management of the Treasury's public accountants. Each chamber is
headed by a President, Vice-President of the Supreme Court, assisted by Advisors. It
also includes referenda advisers and auditors.
General Prosecutor's Office
• The General Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court is headed by a Prosecutor General with three
First Advocates General and Advocates General under his command.
• The General Secretariat,
• which coordinates the activities of the Supreme Court at the administrative level, comprises a
Secretary General, a Deputy Secretary General, Chamber Secretaries, and a Deputy Chamber
Secretary.
• Although the Supreme Court does not rule directly on cases brought before it, it nevertheless rules on
final decisions and rulings and can be considered a third level of jurisdiction.
• Indeed, the judicial chamber deliberates on the conformity of decisions and rulings of ordinary law
rendered by the courts and the Court of Appeal and may render a decision confirming the decision or
annulling the decision and send the case back to be retried, its decision not being subject to appeal.
• However, it may decide to retry the case itself.
• The same applies to the administrative chamber in administrative proceedings brought before it.
The High Court of Justice
• The High Court of Justice is an exceptional jurisdiction.
• It is competent to hear cases of high treason committed by the President of the Republic;
crimes or offences committed by the Vice-President and members of the Government in
the exercise of their functions, except for crimes and offences against State security as
well as related crimes and offences.
• Established by Law N° 59-230 of 7 November 1959.
• The High Court of Justice comprises seven titular judges and five substitute judges, all
deputies, elected by their peers to sit in this jurisdiction.
• The functions of the Public Prosecutor's Office are carried out by the Public Prosecutor at
the Court of Appeal, assisted by the most senior Advocate General.
• At present, this court exists only in this name
 The Judiciary system is dived into three
main jurisdictions. These include:
• non-permanent jurisdictions,
• permanent jurisdictions and
Ivorian • arbitral jurisdictions.

Court There are two non-permanent

Structure jurisdictions.
• The High Justice Court which has jurisdiction to
judge government officials for offences committed
during their time in office.
• The Court of Assize, which has jurisdiction to judge
the highest and most severe crimes. They are held
twice a year.
 Ivorian Court Structure: Permanent
jurisdictions
The permanent jurisdictions are made up of:
• Appeal Courts,
• Courts of First Instance and supreme jurisdictions which include
1. Court of Account,
2. Court of Cassation and the
3. State Council and the Common Justice and Arbitrage Court (CCJA).
• There is also a court of special jurisdiction called the Constitutional
Council which ensures that the constitution is adhered to.
 Adoption Of Legal Standards
The creation and interpretation of law in Côte d’Ivoire is aided by its
membership in a number of regional organizations, including UEMOA,
ECOWAS, the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa,
the African Intellectual Property Organization and the Inter-African
Conference on Insurance Markets.

With regard to arbitration, Côte d’Ivoire is a signatory of the New York

Convention, which commits it to recognizing arbitration awards made in other
contracting states, as well as the International Centre for the Settlement of
Investment Disputes.
Regulations and legislation on trade issues are also circumscribed
by the country’s membership in the World Trade Organisation.
 Problems with the Ivorian Legal System

• while the legal framework is both broad and well defined,

its implementation by the judicial system is sometimes
problematic, particularly in the civil court system, where a
large backlog of cases and a poor prosecutorial record – a
legacy of the country’s political turbulence over the past
decade – has somewhat hampered progress.
• While commercial courts have largely avoided the same
volume of bottlenecks as the civil courts, limited efficiency
means that the country’s judicial system can dampen
investment.
 Problems with the Ivorian Legal
System
• The US Department of State in its 2016 evaluation of the judicial system
noted that it is “generally seen as dysfunctional”, observing that the
enforcement of contracts is often time-consuming and expensive, and that
judges sometimes rule in ‘favour of entrenched interests’, or ‘fail to base
decisions on the legal or contractual merits of the case’.
• Moreover, cases are randomly assigned to judges, but are done so
manually, opening up room for outside influence.
• As is the case throughout many emerging and frontier markets, while the
judgements of foreign courts are recognised, local enforcement can be
challenging, which has led to foreign investors including an international
commercial arbitration clause in contracts, although these too are
sometimes ignored by local courts.
 Ivorian Government Response:
Reforms
The Ivorian government has responded to the challenges by implementing reform measures. Current plans include:

1. the introduction of three-judge panels for some cases,

2. replacing the single-judge system;
3. speeding up the publication of legal decisions;
4. enhancing the IT infrastructure of the court system;

5. training judges in commercial law; and

6. tackling the backlog of commercial cases by increasing the number of appeals courts.
 • The most recent World Bank
ease of doing business index for
2017 placed Côte d’Ivoire’s
Result of contract enforcement in 101st
Reforms place in a ranking of 189
countries, a significant
improvement from 118th the
previous year.
Ease of Doing Business