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    Enforcing awards against African states: practical levers for project investors

    June 16, 2026|

    Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

    Enforcing awards against African states: practical levers for project investors

    First reported on MINING.com

    30 Second Briefing

    Rising resource nationalism and expropriatory measures in African cobalt, copper, gold and lithium projects are driving more investor–state arbitrations, but investors often doubt they can monetise awards against states with limited attachable foreign assets and constrained reserves. Hogan Lovells’ Markus Burgstaller and colleagues with Kroll urge integrating arbitration counsel and asset tracers from the outset to map non-immune assets, using London’s courts and financial infrastructure to target bank accounts, commercial property and bond payment flows. They stress politically sensitive assets, coordinated reputational pressure on lenders and markets, and timing enforcement around government changes to force negotiated settlements rather than purely symbolic seizures.

    Technical Brief

    • Enforcement relies on distinguishing non-immune commercial assets from sovereign/central bank assets protected by state immunity.
    • Target selection is calibrated to create domestic embarrassment for decision-makers without triggering humanitarian or sanctions concerns.

    Our Take

    In our Policy coverage, Africa-linked pieces that touch on cobalt, copper, gold and lithium often involve long-lead mine builds, so enforcement risk against states directly affects how lenders price political risk insurance and structure security over export proceeds.

    London’s role in this story aligns with our database showing the United Kingdom as a frequent legal and financing hub for African critical minerals disputes, which tends to push African sovereigns to consider English-law waivers of immunity when courting project finance.

    For critical minerals projects in Africa, unresolved arbitration awards can delay offtake-backed financing and raise completion guarantees, meaning operators in cobalt and lithium especially may need to budget more time and cost for sovereign enforcement strategies than for purely corporate counterparties.

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    Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.

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