PRESENTATION OF THE SEMINAR

The objectives of OHADA have remained constant ie to assist in the development of Africa by creating a secured legal and judicial security suitable for commercial transactions. Legal and judicial security constitutes a major bench mark of the OHADA legislator destined to attract investors in Africa.

Originally OHADA was conceived in French, it is obvious that this generated a lot of problems in Cameroon due to her bi-jural nature thanks to colonization. The problem was to render applicable, the OHADA law applicable throughout Cameroon. It is not superfluous to point here that, the Common Law is applicable in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon and the Civil Law in the Francophone regions of Cameroon as far as civil matters are concerned.

This situation endangered a resistance to this law on the part of jurists from the Common Law background to the degree that this part of the country is still behind as far as the application and mastery of this law is concerned. Taking cognizance of this problem, some practitioners have seen the importance of this law and have thus embarked on training.

It is palatable that credit is the foundation of commerce; but this credit is lodged with financial institutions. On this score, to give loans, these institutions always need securities to permit them to recover these loans if the debtors fail to honour their obligations.

Within this context, there is virtually no problem as the OHADA legislator has put forth a plethora of measures to ensure the security and payment of a debt under the Uniform Act on Securities and the Uniform Act on Simplified Recovery Procedure and Measures of execution respectively. The rules provided by the afore cited Uniform Acts, govern the formation of mortgages and their foreclosure.

However, it has been witnessed that financial institutions face enormous difficulties in establishing valid mortgages and to proceed to attachment and sale when the debtor has not honoured his obligation. This may be as a result of non respect of the rules relating to the formation of mortgages, the intervention of 3rd parties seeking either the nullity of the attachment, diversion or claim of ownership over the property attached.

It is against this background that financial institutions have to be abreast with certain formalities in order to avoid some mistakes or traps that may sap the validity of mortgages and their foreclosure.

We have thus proposed to organize a seminar within a geographic sphere of a Common Law inspiration. The facilitators are made up of practitioners and university lecturers with sound professional experience in OHADA law, the practice and procedures applicable in Francophone and Anglophone part of Cameroon.

For more information, please contact M. EKWELLE Narcisse, Email: ekwelle03@yahoo.fr