Business Integrity for Impact Lawyers: The Role of Anti-Corruption Obligations in Impact Investing

Hosted by British International Investment and GAIL UK

This in-person discussion brings together an expert panel of impact investors, in-house counsel and business integrity specialists, to focus on how lawyers can help to operationalise and implement a business integrity risk management programme in practice.

Impact investors play a critical role in international efforts to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and have ambitious goals to drive positive economic, environmental and social change through investment. Investing with integrity is fundamental if impact investors are to meet these goals. Business integrity is central to fulfilling a development mandate, and should not only be a matter of compliance. Without this insight, the positive forms of impact that investors seek are in jeopardy.

The discussion will identify where business integrity and anti-corruption obligations reside in transaction legal documentation and will highlight some of the practical limitations to operationalising business integrity obligations in legal documentation (including for example issues around enforceability and pushback).

The panel will go on to highlight proactive risk management approaches, including going beyond basic legal monitoring requirements and will explore the role that impact lawyers can play in preserving impact in this context.

The panel will also discuss the 2022 report by Transparency International, supported by British International Investment, on Investing with Integrity: The Benefits and Challenges of Integrating High Business Integrity Standards in Impact Investments. While there is existing guidance on business integrity standards, this report is the first to explore in detail the realities of implementation in impact investing in emerging and frontier markets. It illustrates the challenges which arise and how impact investors can best respond.

This event will be in English.

You must be a GAIL member, or have received an invitation to attend from a GAIL member or from our event partners, British International Investment or Transparency International, in order to be able to attend this event.

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Moderator

Huma Yusuf

Director, Business Integrity, British International Investment

Huma Yusuf is a Director in the Business Integrity and Corporate Governance team at British International Investment plc, the UK’s development finance institution. She is a Global Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington DC, and has worked as a political and integrity analyst for over a decade. She is an award-winning journalist and a columnist for Pakistan’s Dawn Newspaper.   

 

Speakers

Andy Wallace

Deputy Chief Legal Officer, Equity, British International Investment

 

Andy Wallace heads up the direct equity group in the legal team and joined British International Investment in 2013. He has overall responsibility for the legal aspects of British International Investment’s equity investments and for managing the equity lawyers.  He works on British International Investment’s equity investments across Africa and South Asia.

Previously, he spent twelve years as a senior lawyer with 3i Group in London. Whilst at 3i, Andy worked on private equity investments in Europe, the US, Asia and Brazil as well as on major corporate projects. Prior to that, Andy was a commercial solicitor in private practice in what is now Blake Morgan in Oxford.

 

Andy has an LLB (Hons) from the University of Bristol and qualified as a lawyer in England & Wales in 1995.

Alex Traube-Childs

General Counsel and Head of Business Integrity, InfraCo Africa

 

Alex heads InfraCo Africa’s Legal & Business Integrity team. A project finance and corporate / M&A lawyer and business integrity specialist, Alex previously worked at Shearman and Sterling advising on energy projects across the MENA region. He also worked at Norton Rose Fulbright and Fulbright and Jaworski, advising the IFC in relation to debt and equity investments in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

 

Aurélie Pujo

Senior Partner and General Secretary at Amethis

 

Aurélie Pujo is a Senior Partner and General Secretary at Amethis. She is based in Abidjan.

Ms Pujo is a member of the Amethis Executive Committee, which oversees the company’s activities and investments. She is a member of the boards of the fund management and advisory entities. She provides legal support for all investment activities: new investments, portfolio monitoring, structuring of funds and investment vehicles, as well as managing compliance issues. She is also responsible for communications and investor relations. Ms Pujo is a member of the Board of Directors of PetroIvoire (Ivory Coast), Novamed (Ivory Coast), and Amethis West Africa.

Prior to joining Amethis in 2013, Ms Pujo was Principal Counsel based in Tunis at Emerging Capital Partners (ECP), a pan-African private equity fund, where she was responsible for providing legal support to investment activities in Africa and the MENA region. Previously, she was a lawyer with White&Case in Paris specialising in energy, infrastructure and project finance, and worked for Herbert Smith in Paris and Shanghai.

Ms Pujo was admitted to the Paris Bar in 2005 and completed a postgraduate diploma (DESS-DJCE) in international business law at the Institut de Droit des Affaires d’Aix-en-Provence, and a master’s degree in international law (oil and gas law option) at one of the leading French law schools.

 

Melissa Manzo

General Counsel, AgDevCo and Global Board Member, Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers

 

Melissa heads up AgDevCo’s legal team and has a background in international debt financing. Melissa and her team advise on the structuring and documentation of AgDevCo’s investments, on regulatory, compliance and governance matters applicable to AgDevCo in the UK and in its countries of operation in sub-Saharan Africa, and on the development of AgDevCo’s policies and procedures. Melissa sits on AgDevCo’s Executive Committee and is the Chair of AgDevCo’s Technical Assistance Committee. Prior to joining AgDevCo, Melissa worked at the international law firm Allen & Overy LLP for 12 years, where she advised on cross-border banking and restructuring transactions. Whilst at Allen & Overy, Melissa founded and managed its microfinance and social investment group and worked on a number of pro bono matters. She has also spent time on secondment to the emerging markets desk at Citigroup. Melissa has a BA in Oriental Studies from Oxford University and a postgraduate diploma in law from BPP Law School.

Rory Donaldson

 

Programme Manager, Business Integrity

Rory’s work aims to raise corporate anti-corruption standards. He leads project teams working on quantitative benchmarking and analysis, thought leadership and policy development.  He also engages at the senior level with companies to create a dialogue on the company’s priorities for improvement, and regularly chairs industry workshops.  Recent work includes leading a research project into the relationship between successful impact investing outcomes and strong approaches to anti-corruption, and the links between corruption and other ESG factors such as environmental and labour standards.