Escrow Europe opens new office in South Africa

As of January 2004 Escrow Europe Holding, headquartered in Amsterdam, opened an office in Cape Town, South Africa, to expand its network for Active Escrow Services. The new company, Escrow Europe-Africa (Pty) Ltd, which consists of a group of industry specialists, will offer its services to the Southern Africa Corporate market in particular.

 

Andrew Stekhoven, Managing Director Escrow Europe-Africa:
"Operational risk in the South African corporate world is taking on a much higher profile since Enron et al. Company Secretaries and Compliance Officers worry as to how to deal with the risks across the spectrum of Intellectual Property related issues.

They all need to be able to give a "tick" to good governance and need to contain basic risk exposure such as reliance on the use of Intellectual Property that they do not own. Escrow Europe is a worldwide operating escrow agency that specializes in Active Escrow and has more than a decade of experience in protection against these risks.

 

South Africa with its international business community, familiarity with US, UK and European business practices and its national software industry is starting to demand the kind of custodianship Escrow Europe has to offer. It can no longer rely on the traditional or passive approach to IP custodianship that passive custodians, such as banks, notaries, legal firms etc offer. As opposed to passive custodians, Escrow Europe executes technical verification for each and every deposit and keeps the material up-to-date by regular requests for new releases or updates from the Suppliers concerned."

Escrow Europe 's Active Escrow Services already extend to a number of major South African clients and good growth in business is expected for 2004. A number of Market Update Events are planned in all the major South African business centers and these are intended to address a broad spectrum of Active Escrow topics. This will be in the context of IP related operation risk, compliance and good governance practices.

 

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Andrew Stekhoven
Escrow Europe-Africa (Pty) Ltd.
Tel: +27 (0) 21 402 1620
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 227 3340
Email: andrew.stekhoven@escroweurope.com