July 08, 2020
Gabriel joined the firm as an Associate in August 2015. He obtained his two Second Class Upper Honours degrees in Communication & Language Arts (B.A. Hons., 2011) and Law (LLB Hons., 2012) from the Universities of Ibadan and Ilorin respectively. He was called to the Nigerian Bar in November 2013, after completing his Nigerian Law School programme.Undertaking his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme with Anambra State’s Ministry of Justice, Awka, he was awarded in (February 2015) the Best Corps Member in Anambra State during his set. Prior to LeLaw, Gabriel also gained litigation and transaction experience with two law firms in Awka and Lagos.
During his LLB programme, he participated in several intra-University, national and international moot competitions including Nigerian rounds of the International Criminal Court Trial Competition 2012) and attended the 18th Annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Training in Ghana (2011).Gabriel’s B.A. and LLB dissertations respectively were: ‘The Journalists’ Perception of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI Act) and Its Implication on Press Freedom’ (June 2011); and ‘The Global Protection of Human Rights: The Role of the United Nations’ (May 2012).
Gabriel’s involvement with several transactions at LeLaw have included the following: advisory and compliance strategy formulation and support work for insurance industry players (underwriting and brokerage firms), upstream and downstream companies; advised a private equity firm on structuring its US$40 million investment in an upstream company; provided group restructuring advisory and implementation support to a Nigerian upstream company with African wide plans, amongst others.His recent civil and commercial litigation briefs have included defending subsidiaries of a leading Nigerian conglomerate, defending and counter-claiming for an ex-employee of a leading financial institution resulting in favourable settlement of the matters, and recovery (on an instalmental basis) of a debt previously written-off by the client, from the debtor-subsidiary of a distressed entity.