Bibliographie sélective OHADA

La notion de contrats d’affaires en droit OHADA, loin d’être systématisée, est banalisée, la doctrine s’y intéressant réellement ou de façon superficielle la prenant pour évidente puisque l’assimilant quasi systématiquement aux contrats commerciaux. En outre, même si l’on perçoit des efforts de la part du législateur dans la prise en compte des contrats nés de la pratique ou légalement consacrés, on ne saurait manquer de relever l’attitude par moment hésitante, tatillonne, minimaliste. L’objet de la présente étude est de démontrer les failles d’une telle approche, tout en proposant des solutions permettant d’avoir un système plus cohérent.

Recognizing the immense potential for greater Chinese investment promotion and its contribution to Ethiopia’s industrialization and acknowledging the gaps, this paper aims to conduct a rigorous research through analysis of secondary sources and qualitative survey of Chinese enterprise doing business in Ethiopia in various sectors. In this regard, the key policy questions that this study tries to answer are ‘the involvement in and the contribution to Ethiopia’s industrialization and the challenges and opportunities they face. Hence, the overall objective of this research will be to (i) assess the trends in Chinese enterprises involvement in Ethiopia’s industrialization for the last decade, (ii) inform both the Chinese government and Ethiopian government on key business barriers and market failures that are constraining Chinese business entry and growth in Ethiopia; (iii) investigate the immense untapped investment potential from China that can be attracted and opportunities that Ethiopia could offer to Chinese investors; and (iv) propose policy options on how to address the challenges and thereby maximize the opportunities to enhance Chinese investment towards Ethiopia’s industrialization.

Le Code civil égyptien connaît depuis sa promulgation en 1949 la révision pour imprévision. Le texte est rédigé en termes limpides et a fait l’objet de maints arrêts de la Cour de cassation. Un demi-siècle plus tard, le droit d’auteur a consacré cette question dans un texte dont les termes ambigus confondent lésion et imprévision et auquel la jurisprudence reste réticente. Cette étude essaie d’aborder l’imprévision en droit commun et son articulation avec le droit d’auteur, une telle articulation pouvant révéler la nécessité d’une réforme du texte spécial. The Egyptian Civil Code, since its enactment in 1949, recognizes the revision for unpredictability. The text is written in clear terms and it is the subject of numerous decisions of the Court of Cassation. Half a century later, copyright law has enshrined this issue in a statute whose ambiguous terms confuse substantive inequality and impracticability of contract caused by un event unpredictable and to which case law remains reluctant. This study tries to shed the lights on the unpredictability in civil law and its articulation with copyright. Such an articulation could reveal the need for a reform of the special text.

Le droit originaire du traité de l’Organisation pour l’harmonisation en Afrique du droit des affaires (OHADA), applicable au sein des sociétés africaines de cet espace, manifeste actuellement des pesanteurs liées à son enracinement culturel non africain. En effet, les sociétés africaines signataires dudit traité ont décidé en 1993 d’élaborer un droit commun des affaires simple, moderne et adapté pour faciliter le développement de leurs économies. Elles ont, à ce jour, adopté dix actes uniformes qui régulent certains domaines des affaires en vue de réaliser la croissance économique prévue dans le traité. Cependant, la démarche empruntée à cet effet est confuse. D’une part, l’option pour l’uniformisation, au mépris de l’harmonisation attendue des phénomènes culturels africains, et, d’autre part, la transposition dans les sociétés africaines des modèles juridiques occidentaux, notamment les pratiques du droit international, amènent à douter de l’inspiration africaine du droit de l’OHADA. Un quart de siècle après, son bilan n’est pas flatteur et ne permet pas de préjuger de la satisfaction des objectifs du traité. En outre, la révision du traité à Québec en 2008 pour un meilleur ancrage culturel africain de ses normes révèle indubitablement l’intérêt d’asseoir l’essence culturelle du droit.

Les questions liées aux difficultés d’accès au logement et à la propriété sont plus que jamais d’actualité. Parmi les solutions proposées pour pallier ces difficultés, François Frenette, professeur émérite de la Faculté de droit de l’Université Laval à Québec, a élaboré un modèle de coopérative qui concilie les fondements individualistes de la propriété du droit privé québécois et les fondements communautaires des mouvements coopératifs, et ce, en offrant un accès à un type de propriété privée où les libertés du propriétaire seraient encadrées par une communauté donnée. Tentant d’explorer les contours de cette conciliation, l’auteur présente une légère immersion dans ce modèle proposé par le professeur Frenette, suivie d’une analyse sommaire utilisant ultimement la métaphore d’un « cerbère juridique » pour illustrer les interactions entre les institutions du droit privé québécois utilisés dans ce modèle et la volonté d’une communauté donnée de protéger la vocation sociale d’un immeuble.

Faire des salariés, des citoyens dans l'entreprise est une philosophie qui date du XXème prendre son essor vers les années 1980. La protection des créances salariales dans les entreprises OHADA en période de crise, nous a amené à étudier pour éclairer le lecteur, à une protection qui est véritablement assurée à travers les privilèges qui, manifestement couvre les créances salariales au travers des conditions fixées dans les limites du traitement de ces privilèges. Cette protection se verra renforcer de plus en plus par le super privilège tant dans son domaine, que sa mise en oeuvre.

The future of sustainable development in Africa and for its growing population will depend on investments which might come mostly from abroad attracted by a favourable investment climate (or ecosystem). It is rather doubtful that the actual ('old') international legal framework for investment-related and investment-specific measures which does hardly create an adequate balance between the interests of all important public as well as private stakeholders would meet the requirement of today and tomorrow. But any alterations or improvements must start from the present state of things. So, this study looks at the different levels and various instruments dealing with traditional standards of investment and investor protection, e.g. BITs und TIPs, and at the activities of global, regional and sub-regional organizations (in particular EU and OHADA). Moreover, new developments at global and regional levels are discussed including trends showing a somewhat specific African approach to investment issues ('Africanization'). Finally, a very important topic, i.e. the relation between investment protection and human rights (of investors and of other people negatively affected by relevant activities), is described and assessed in more detail. A second part of the analysis will turn to elaborating on dispute settlement and enforcement issues since till today, there seems to be a sharp distinction between Investor-State- Dispute Settlement (ISDS) by way of mediation, conciliation and arbitration on the one hand and judicial redress by national courts (of home, host or third States) on the other.

This paper analyses financial inclusion in Africa focusing on the role of political business cycles and pricing behaviour of banks. We employ a sample of 330 banks operating in 29 African countries to test for two related hypotheses. Panel fixed and random effects were estimated for the period 2002 to 2013. The regression results that ensued suggests first that loan price increases in pre-election and election years. Building on this result and employing various specifications of financial inclusion, the second results suggest that, high bank loan prices in election years tend to increase financial access more, compared to non-election years, and that, high deposit price reduces financial usage but increases financial access in election years, compared to non-election years. By extension, these results have important policy implications for policymakers.

That intellectual property is the creation of ideas in the form of new discoveries, literary works, and works of art, symbols, names and images used in trade. Of course, intellectual property is closely related to the world of commerce because its emergence is triggered by the desires of the members of the World Intellectual Property Organization who want to protect their economies in the era of free trade. In this case how the form of protection of intellectual property rights in the perspective of international trade, it can be seen that basically the laws and or regulations in every country in the world are different and each country has the right to implement its own legal rules in the jurisdiction of their country.

Le juge togolais a rendu une intéressante décision sur la contrefaçon en cas de cumul des droits, notamment de brevet et de marque, sur un produit. D’un côté, quant à l’appréciation de la contrefaçon de brevet d’invention, ne constitue pas une contrefaçon, la mise sur le marché d’une invention dont le mécanisme a une double fonction distincte de l’unique fonction de l’invention protégée. De l’autre, l’apposition de la marque d’autrui sur les emballages et l’étiquette du prix d’un produit constitue un comportement gênant et troublant susceptible de donner lieu à une réparation du dommage subi par le propriétaire de la marque. La portée de la décision dépasse de loin les seules conséquences de la contrefaçon. Elle implique également que, la propriété intellectuelle étant fille de la liberté de commerce et de l’industrie, l’appréciation de la contrefaçon ne puisse oblitérer l’aspect concurrentiel de ces droits. La liberté de commerce et de l’industrie peut donc aussi bien intervenir pour soutenir les titulaires de droit de propriété intellectuelle que pour encadrer leurs pratiques.

The adoption of International financial reporting standards (IFRS) has been presented in several empirical literature as a factor that could improve the quality of financial reports. However, Ghana has not attained the desired levels of financial reporting quality after the adoption of IFRS. Literature reveals that lack of proper enforcement of these high-quality standards may result in limited compliance and will undermine the effectiveness of these standards in terms of attaining high-quality financial reports. This study therefore argues that the relationship between IFRS compliance and reporting quality revolves around some enforcement mechanisms like corporate governance structures. In view of that, by using random effect estimation technique, this study examined the role of corporate governance in the relationship between IFRS compliance and the reporting quality of firms listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE). The study found that the right corporate governance mechanisms will enhance the positive effect of IFRS compliance on reporting quality. This study further recommends that to gain an appreciable level of public confidence in the annual reports of firms listed on the GSE, the audit committee’s independence and the board’s independence should be strengthened to ensure that management does not only adopt IFRS, but that the standards are actually complied with.

Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is supposed to help enhance comparability of financial statement, improve the quality of financial reporting and accounting information of businesses in a country. This is expected to help improve Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the adopting countries. This study examined the effect of IFRS adoption on FDI inflows in Africa. Unlike previous studies that sample both adopting and non-adopting countries, this study sampled only Africa countries that have adopted IFRS to determine whether the adoption has improved FDI inflows. To achieve this objective, 20 African countries that have adopted IFRS were sampled covering a period 1980 to 2015. Data was sourced from The World Bank financial and Economic Data. Control variables such as GDP growth, openness of the economy, government debt and population growth were included in the model. The correlation and regression analysis showed that IFRS adoption has a positive and significant influence on FDI inflows in Africa. On the other hand, open economy, government debt and population growth had a positive and significant association with FDI. Overall, the results show that African countries that want to improve FDI inflows must improve the quality of their reporting environment by adopting IFRS.

Les États membres de l’OAPI forment un espace d’harmonisation du droit d’auteur en Afrique. Cette harmonisation est encore inachevée. Les règles conventionnelles relatives au contrat d’édition en témoignent. Aussi, enquêter sur le contrat d’édition dans l’espace OAPI nécessite un examen tant du texte de l’Accord de Bangui que des lois nationales des dix-sept États membres, dont il faut relever quelques différences sans éluder la question d’éventuels conflits de lois.

In international arbitration, arbitrators have procedural powers that allow them to manage and conduct the arbitration proceedings in a fair and efficient manner. These powers are typically set out in the arbitration rules that the parties have agreed to, such as the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) rules or the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) rules. Arbitrators have the authority to determine the procedure to be followed in the arbitration, including the admissibility, relevance, materiality, and weight of the evidence presented. They can also decide on the language to be used in the arbitration and the location of the hearings. In addition, arbitrators can issue orders and directions as needed to ensure the fair and efficient conduct of the proceedings. This may include ordering the production of documents or witness testimony, or setting time limits for the submission of evidence. The present paper critically examines the lex arbitri, the law that governs the arbitral proceedings, and makes out a case that lex arbitri cannot be challenged in court, as the parties to the arbitration have agreed to resolve their disputes through arbitration rather than through the courts. However, if the tribunal exceeds its powers or acts in a manner that is inconsistent with the lex arbitri, the parties may have grounds to challenge the tribunal's decision on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction or due process. The paper summarises some key judgments in which Courts have upheld or quashed the Tribunals procedural orders. It will be concluded that the procedural powers of arbitrators in international arbitration are real and not perfunctory, though bounded within powers extended by Parties to the arbitral tribunal.

Les sûretés judiciaires OHADA permettent au créancier d’acquérir une protection conservatoire grâce à une procédure d’urgence connue sous le nom d’ordonnance sur requête. L’efficacité de cet instrument procédural à l’égard du créancier repose sur plusieurs aspects. Dans le but de conférer une protection juridictionnelle immédiate, l’ordonnance sur requête permet au créancier d’inscrire sa sûreté sur les biens du débiteur à son insu. Cet effet de surprise à l’égard du débiteur est renforcé par une certaine célérité dans l’exécution de la décision du juge qui, en facilitant la tâche au créancier, lui imposera éventuellement certaines conditions afin de garantir le caractère légitime de sa revendication. Judicial securities OHADA make it possible to the creditor to acquire a precautionary protection thanks to an emergency procedure known as order of request. The effectiveness of this procedural instrument, with regards to the creditor, based on several aspects. With an aim of conferring an immediate jurisdictional protection, the ordinance on request makes it possible to the creditor to register his security on the debtor's property without his knowledge. This effect of surprise with regards to the debtor is reinforced by a certain celerity in the execution of the decision of the judge who, by facilitating the task with the creditor, will impose possibly certain conditions to him in order to guarantee the legitimate character of his claim.