| Nigeria
PRACTICE AREAS:
Project Finance
Energy
Maritime and Environment
Advocacy and Dispute Resolution
General Commercial Practice
Mfon Usoro is the Managing Partner of the Law Firm of Paul Usoro & Company (PUC) and leads the Maritime/Environment and International Trade Section of the Firm. She is reputed to be a foremost maritime and environmental law legal practitioner in Nigeria. Her expertise covers the entire breadth of maritime and environmental law and practice. Mrs. Usoro is very familiar with international maritime and environment issues including maritime and trade negotiation under the WTO, African Union, United Nations Environment Programme [UNEP] and Maritime Organization for West and Central Africa [MOWCA]. She is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars within and outside Nigeria and has sat on several ministerial committees of Federal Ministries in Nigeria.
Mrs. Usoro, upon instructions by the House Committee on Marine Transport of the National Assembly, led PUC’s team in producing the Ports Bill, 2010 which is now before the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (NASS). The Bill seeks to establish the Nigerian Ports and Harbours Authority and the National Transport Commission.
Mrs. Usoro led the legislative advocacy team of PUC in the drafting of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency ‘NIMASA’ Act 2007 pursuant to instructions from the Federal Ministry of Transportation. She also worked with the two Houses of the NASS until the Bill was passed into law.
In 2007, under the instruction from the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, she drafted the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria Act 2007 which was passed by the NASS and assented to by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Act was aimed at injecting professionalism into the freight forwarding industry. She anchored the advocacy among different interest groups including all the freight forwarders groups, government agencies and the NASS.
Mrs. Usoro also led PUC’s team in drafting the Coastal and Inland Shipping Cabotage (Bareboat Registration) Regulations 2005 and the Coastal and Inland Shipping Cabotage (Ship Detention Order) Regulations 2005 on instructions by the Federal Ministry of Transport. She served as a member of the Legal and Regulatory/Restructuring Sub-Committee of the Presidential Task Force on Ports Reform 2005/2006. She also drafted the Nigerian Ports Commission Bill 2003 sponsored by the then Chairman of the Senate Committee on Marine Transport. The Bill which was passed by the last Senate in 2003, sought to create an independent regulatory body for the ports. Again, Mrs. Usoro was instructed by the Federal Ministry of Transport to advise the Ministry on the appropriate administrative structure for the enforcement of cabotage in Nigeria. She led the PUC team in the preparation of the Cabotage Implementation and Administrative Enforcement Structure. The assignment has since been completed and submitted to the Client. As a member of the Presidential Committee on Modalities for Implementation of Cabotage in Nigeria, Mrs. Usoro chaired the drafting Sub-Committee and played a pivotal role in coordinating the work product of the other four technical Sub-Committees. The work product was the Guidelines on Implementation of Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act, 2003. Mrs. Usoro, as the Maritime Legal Consultant to the Committee on Transport in the House of Representatives, drafted the Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act 2003. Apart from drafting the Bill, she worked with the House Committee, the Senate Committee on Marine Transport and relevant stakeholders to ensure the passage of the Bill into law. As a Consultant to the Federal Ministry of Environment, Mrs. Usoro played a pivotal role in the drafting of the Draft Environment Management Bill, 2000 which was submitted to the Ministry.
Mrs. Usoro played and continues to play a major role and in several instances, assumed overall responsibility in major national, regional and international assignments. Mrs. Usoro served as the pioneer Director General/CEO of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) from 1st August, 2006 to 8th May, 2007 during which time she achieved milestones. She was responsible for enhancing vessel inspection and certification and the safety of maritime navigation in line with global best practices. NIMASA recorded unprecedented record of legislative success under her administration as several international instruments and domestic bills were enacted as municipal laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. She also recorded achievements in the implementation of the Cabotage Act. Under her administration, Nigeria was re-elected into the Council of the International Maritime Organisation (“IMO”) while she also made giant strides in enhancing the country’s international image in the comity of maritime nations.
Mrs. Usoro was recently appointed by the African Union to work with a group of experts on the amendment of the African Union Maritime Transport Charter, 1994. The work product is the draft African Maritime Transport Charter 2008 adopted at the African Ministers of Transport Conference in Durban, South Africa, October, 2009. Mrs. Usoro is a member of the MOWCA Committee of Experts for the establishment of Regional Maritime Development Bank for MOWCA (an inter-governmental body for the West and Central Africa member countries) and serves as the Chairperson of the Sub-Committee on Selection of Consultants for the Project from 2009 to date.
Mrs. Usoro is also the Maritime Legal Consultant to the MOWCA. Mrs. Usoro, under instructions from MOWCA in 2005, drafted the Memorandum of Understanding on the Establishment of a Regional Integrated Coastguard Network in the West and Central Africa Region. The MOU was adopted in July 2008 at Dakar by the General Assembly of Ministers of MOWCA and signed by 13 countries on the same date. In May 2006, she was appointed by MOWCA Committee of Experts to be the Chairperson of the Ad-Hoc Committee on the Establishment of the Sub-Regional Integrated Coastguard Network and in that capacity negotiated and developed a consensus MOU for presentation to and adoption by the Ministers of Transport of the sub-regional Organization.
She consults for MOWCA on regional Cabotage and Regional Coastguard Network. In that capacity she produced a Draft Framework for Sub-regional Cabotage and the Memorandum of Understanding on Sub-regional Cabotage in October 2001 and the project on sub-regional cabotage is ongoing. Mrs. Usoro represented MOWCA at the Diplomatic Conference on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation Conventions held at the International Maritime Organization in London in November 2005.
In February 2008, she was appointed a consultant by United Nations Environmental Programme [Nairobi] and IUCN [Senegal] to work with two other Consultants from South Africa and Togo for the revitalization of the Convention for Co-operation in the Protection and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the West and Central Africa Region [Abidjan Convention].
Mrs. Usoro is a founding project team member and maritime legal Consultant for ECOMARINE International Limited, a private sector-driven regional coastal shipping company headquartered in the Republic of Togo for the provision of feeder services, load centers, and passenger ferry services in the West/Central African region.
In 2003, 2004 and 2005, she was part of the Nigerian delegation at the Bordeaux Colloquium, France, Vancouver 2004 and Cape Town for the negotiation on United Nations’ Commission on International Trade Law’s Draft Transport Instrument under the auspices of Committee Maritime International. The Instrument is intended to govern international carriage of goods and services including multimodal transport in place of the existing Hague and Hague-Visby Rules.
As a member of the Oil Spill Response Sub-Committee of the National Action Plan Coordinating Committee, Mrs. Usoro participated in the conceptualization, development and drafting of the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan which was presented to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by the Federal Ministry of Environment in 2002. This assignment resulted in the establishment of NOSDRA in 2005 by the Federal Government, the Agency responsible for oil spill response. In 2002, Mrs. Usoro was appointed a member of the Presidential Committee on the development of Integrated Coastal Area Management Plan.
Mrs. Usoro was in August 2002 appointed a member of the National Committee on the Implementation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutant (POP).She was also a member of the Inter-ministerial Bio-Safety Committee participated in the preparation and drafting of Nigeria’s Bio-Safety Guidelines 2000. The Guideline has been approved by the Federal Executive Council to regulate the Biotechnology Industry and Research Institute. She was also involved with other Consultants in developing a National Bio-safety Framework. In November 2001, Mrs. Usoro was appointed a member of the National Committee on Preparation for the Partnership Conference on the African Process for the Development and Protection of the Coastal and Marine Environment in Sub-Saharan Africa held in Abuja, 2002. Serving under the Technical Sub-Committee, her work involved the evaluation and appraisal of concept papers/project on the African Process. The African Process is a GEF (Global Environment Facility) MRSP for sub-Saharan Africa and is facilitated by ACOPS (Advisory Committee on Pollution of the Sea).
Over the years, she has also specialized proffering legal advice on Ship Sale and Purchase, Ship Finance and registration of ships. Having worked closely with industry stakeholders in the public and private sectors, she has immense experience in the starting up of shipping companies, litigation and charterparty disputes and environmental industry stake holders on regulatory and compliance issues.
Mrs. Usoro also shares a high level of expertise in other practice areas particularly Project Finance, General Commercial Practice and Energy, and is a frequent speaker in both national and international forum.
Mrs Usoro is presently the Secretary General of the West and Central Africa Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control (Abuja MOU). Abuja MoU is the regional MoUs on Port State Control in West and Central West Africa with the main objective of ensuring maritime safety, security and cleaner oceans and the elimination of sub-standard vessels through an effective Port State Control in the member States of Abuja MoU.
