Didas Kayihura, currently serving as the Rector of the Institute for Legal Practice and Development (ILPD), is a former Acting Principal of University of Rwanda’s College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS), (2016-2017). He was the Dean of the Faculty of Law at The National University of Rwanda (UNR), (2007-2009).
He was a partner and Head of Business and Commercial Chamber and a practitioner at the Fountain Law Chambers, (2008-2013) before it was dissolved to form Fountain Advocates. He is one of the founding partners of Fountain Advocates and he is currently a partner and is still heading the Business and Commercial Law Department at Fountain Advocates. He holds;
- PhD from Utrecht University – The Netherlands, 2015. His PhD research was on “Corporate Governance and the liability of Corporate Directors: The case of Rwanda”;
- Master’s Degree (LL. M) – International Business Law from Utrecht University (2006);
- Bachelor’s Degree (LL. B/Hons) from the National University of Rwanda.
He is a renowned business legal analyst and negotiator. Prior to joining Fountain Law Chambers and later, at Fountain Advocates, he was and still is a Business Law, Company Law, Contracts Law, Securities Law, and ADR lecturer at the Faculty of Law of what was the National University of Rwanda, now School of Law of the University of Rwanda (UR) and he is a regular and certified trainer of Judges, attorneys and Prosecutors at the Institute of Law Practice and Development (ILPD).
He is a listed member of the Kigali International Arbitration Centre (KIAC) as an arbitrator, an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Commercial Arbitrators (CIArb) based in London, and he is also a CEDR accredited Commercial mediator.
Didas has served and is still serving on various boards of business companies, has served on professional institutional bodies in Rwanda like the high council of Judiciary (2007-2009) and the high council of the Prosecution (2007-2009), and on the National Steering Committee on Intellectual Property (2007-2009). He is also serving as a member of the Multi-institutional Committee, Business Law Sub-committee (composed of Judges, Prosecutors, Attorneys and Academics) on Law Reporting.
Didas specializes in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), commercial law, banking, corporate law, product liability, the law of securities and secured transactions, Labour Law and Land Law. He has a wide understanding of institutional operations in Rwanda and has extensively practiced, authored papers and lectured in the above disciplines.
At Fountain Advocates, he is largely involved in carrying out legal research, legal advisory, legal due diligences, business negotiations, and incorporation of companies, arbitrations and creation of securities for Banks but also pleading before courts on behalf of the Firm’s clients. He has negotiated a number of mergers and/or acquisitions of both local as well as international companies and has served as an arbitrator on various Labour, commercial and investment cases and has published as well on Arbitration. He has carried out or facilitated various consultancies having to do with legal drafting issues, governance (like the national Joint Governance Assessment) and others.
Didas is a member of the Rwandan Kigali Bar Association (KBA), the East African Law Society (EALS), and the Kigali International Arbitration Centre (KIAC) and is a native speaker of Kinyarwanda, has excellent command of English and a working knowledge of French and Swahili.
