Biography: Commercial Litigation

Babatunde Irukera is a partner with SimmonsCooper Partners and has over 19 years of transactional/commercial litigation experience. His experience includes over 10 years in the United States engaging is complex commercial litigation and settlements including several jury trials and significant appellate work. He routinely conducts oral arguments before the US Court of Appeals and the Nigerian Court of Appeal with reported locus classicus that are currently of significant precedential value. Babatunde also deploys excellent pre-litigation and appropriate extrajudicial resolution strategies resolving business and other disputes. Babatunde was educated at the University of Ife, Nigeria (1989) and admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 1990. He is also admitted to the Washington State Bar (1996).

Babatunde heads the commercial litigation and competition teams in SimmonsCooper Partners (SCP). SCP is a leading commercial litigation and corporate commercial firm in Nigeria. With a multi-jurisdictional competence spanning Nigeria, the United States and the United Kingdom, SCP combines sound legal counsel with prudent business, ethical counsel, superior advocacy, and personal and responsive service. SCP's clients represent a broad spectrum of both the private and public sectors, ranging from multinationals, financial institutions, multilateral financial institutions, oil and gas operations, private equity and venture capital operations, to the Federal and State governments and individuals.

Babatunde's engagements have involved a broad range of commercial and corporate issues including securities litigation, investments and divestments, joint ventures, oil block acquisitions, product liability, fiduciary duties of directors, intellectual property, and cross border litigation including discovery in other jurisdictions. Recently, he notably successfully represented a class of investors in a dispute involving the single largest capital market transaction in Nigeria, in the process establishing the legality of interest devolution to investors. This theory has been adopted by the securities regulator under its recently amended regulatory rules. In other matters, Babatunde has represented a multilateral financial institution - in statutory and regulatory appraisal before municipal agencies; and the Federal and some state governments - in corporate misconduct cases, in a particular case, leading to a settlement in excess of $80 million, the largest settlement yet in Nigeria.

Babatunde also conducts antitrust analysis for Nigeria's regulatory agencies and corporate organisations. Babatunde is an active member of both the Nigerian Bar Association and American Bar Association where he currently serves as vice-chair of the Africa committee of the international section. Babatunde also provides capacity-building advisory services to federal agencies and other clients on the introduction and implementation of a competition law regime in Nigeria.