Author: NLM Correspondent

Now that many firms have implemented comprehensive home office security measures, lawyers must turn their attention to increasing efficiency while working remotely. By Gulam Zade After the transition to remote-work models in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, lawyers faced an uptick in security and privacy issues. Many home networks were not as secure as those in the office. Cyber criminals took advantage of fear and confusion surrounding the virus and deployed targeted phishing scams. Insecure passwords and the use of personal devices for work tasks put private data at high risk for exposure. Fortunately, now, months later, many law firms…

As non-equity ranks continue to grow across both sides of the Atlantic are firms losing sight of the need to maintain long term sustainability? By James Willer Changes in partnership structure is a well-established trend across the global legal market, impacting firms of all sizes. Central to this shift has been the rise of non-equity partners, now a recognizable industry staple. Over the last ten years, the number of non-equity partners across the Am Law 200 has increased by 36% from 17,086 to 23,166. On average, non-equity partners now represent a 44% share of the overall partnership at Am Law 200…

And a forthright judge speaks By Carmel Rickard As Kenya celebrated the 10th anniversary of its constitution, with virtual seminars, webinars and other discussions, one of the most serious challenges yet brought under the constitution is making its way through the courts. That problem is the failure of the country’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta, to appoint more than 40 judges nominated by the Judicial Service Commission. And, equally significant, his failure to abide by a court order that the judges be appointed. In February three Kenyan judges of the high court’s constitutional and human rights division delivered a damning judgment. The…

The era when the LSK paid for its colonial sins By Gilbert Munyumbu Understanding how the LSK attempted to restrain the Jomo Kenyatta regime from its excesses requires clarity in two main areas. First, we need to understand the general state of rule of law under the Kenyatta rule, and second, we must interrogate the Kenyatta government’s attitude towards systematic oversight and restraint, which come through both horizontal and vertical accountability, by tracing the relationship the government built with institutions emerging out of these two types of accountability. The interaction with the LSK itself would need to be relayed in…

In the months since the pandemic cratered the price of oil, the financial fallout has spread from drilling companies to refineries and oilfield maintenance companies. Now the crash has claimed another, more unlikely victim: The only system built to capture carbon emissions from a coal plant in the US, one of only two worldwide. The $1 billion system, known as Petra Nova, was built in 2017 to catch CO2 from one unit of a coal plant near Houston. That plant is one of the dirtiest in Texas, both in terms of climate and air quality impacts. Petra Nova was meant…

Aviation has yet to take full advantage of the potential of APIs, and lags behind others such as Telecoms and Fintech. The air transport industry has been profoundly altered over the past few months and will continue to do so amid the ongoing shifts from COVID-19. Airports are still unusually quiet in many places and many airlines fear they may not recover their losses from seeing thousands of planes grounded. The knock-on effect is already causing huge job losses with fears of greater future potential redundancies, including at major airlines, travel companies and ground handlers globally. While some holidaying passengers…

Data analytics can reduce mundane, manual tasks and enable global trade teams to focus on strategic planning to deliver tangible benefits to their companies. By Keith Haurie   Customs authorities around the world are embracing the use of big data and data analytics, a development that creates risk and opportunities for importers and exporters. Indeed, the World Customs Organization (WCO) has pushed this agenda for several years. In 2016, for example, the WCO’s International Customs Day carried the theme ’Digital Customs: Progressive Engagement’. Customs agencies were urged to adopt the latest technology, and WCO members were invited to use cloud computing, blockchain,…

By Elijah Munyi The US and Kenya formally launched negotiations for a free trade agreement on July 8, 2020. With the US gearing up for presidential elections in a few months, these talks may not draw much global attention. But as a prototype for evaluating the substance of future US-Africa trade relations, a lot rides on Washington using this deal to make a bold statement of its commitment to effective North-South free trade agreements. The US is the third most important destination for Kenyan exports after Uganda and Pakistan, accounting for 8% of its total exports. Kenya exported goods worth $527 million (Sh530…

While premature deindustrialisation is a global phenomenon, the process will be more consequential for the continent. By Brahima S Coulibaly For decades, economic growth and structural transformation was equated with manufacturing-led development. This applied to most of today’s advanced and many emerging economies. With a global trend of premature deindustrialisation, an entirely different pathway could now open up for Africa, as examples from several countries show. Economists have long regarded economic transformation – the movement of workers from lower to higher productivity employment – as essential to successful economic development. Traditionally, the development of export-oriented industries, notably manufacturing, has been…

The case of the marauding Executive and a whimpering Parliament BY KEVIN MOTAROKI In the seven years Jubilee has been in power, it is countable the number of times that Parliament has stood up to the Executive. The two instances that quickly come to mind are the current standoff over the third basis of revenue sharing among counties, and secondly, in 2018 when Parliament rejected the Executive’s plan to implement a 16 per cent value added tax (VAT) on fuel. But even the two instances have to be put in their proper context: The standoff over the new formula for…