Five disciplines, run as one.
Commercial Litigation · International Arbitration · Contracting · Advisory · Strategy
Commercial Litigation
The firm's litigation practice is built for high-stakes commercial matters before the DIFC Courts, the ADGM Courts, and other common-law forums — including shareholder, joint-venture and post-transactional disputes that contract or statute directs to court. The work covers the full arc — from an ex parte application filed before close of business to the last enforcement order. Contentious work: the early call, the late-night drafting, the hearing prepared on its merits.
In litigation, procedure is half the case. Get it wrong the first time and there is rarely a second.
International Arbitration
International arbitration is the firm's tribunal practice for cross-border commercial disputes, including the bulk of M&A, share-purchase, joint-venture and post-transactional matters whose agreements direct them to a tribunal. We conduct institutional and ad hoc references seated in the United Arab Emirates, London, and Singapore — under the rules of DIAC, arbitrateAD, ICC, LCIA, SIAC and UNCITRAL — and act on recognition and enforcement of awards before the DIFC Courts. The work covers tribunal selection, the proceedings themselves, and post-award enforcement. Post-award enforcement is where most awards are won or lost, and we treat it as part of the same mandate.
In arbitration, the tribunal that hears the case is half the case. We choose carefully.
Corporate & Commercial Contracting
The firm drafts and negotiates the corporate and commercial instruments that govern complex transactions across the region. Construction and hospitality contracting are the strongest concentrations — EPC and fit-out contracts, operation-and-maintenance agreements, hotel-management agreements, technical-services arrangements. The wider work covers share-purchase agreements, shareholders' agreements, joint-venture documents, commercial supply-and-distribution contracts, and settlement and release deeds. Most are drafted to hold up in the dispute they may eventually face.
A contract is read most carefully by the counterparty who wants out of it.
Corporate & Commercial Advisory
The firm advises corporates and family offices on transactions still in planning, on regulatory and licensing exposure across UAE jurisdictions, and on the structuring of joint ventures and acquisitions. The work is usually held as an ongoing engagement — a standing retainer for the operational questions that come up between disputes, not just at them.
An hour of advisory before signing can save a year of arbitration after.
Strategy & Multi-Forum Coordination
International commercial matters rarely sit in a single forum. A serious dispute may run as a DIFC claim, a parallel arbitration, foreign-court enforcement, and onshore proceedings handled with local counsel — each on its own timetable, with its own rules and counterparties. The firm runs the matter under a single strategy: pleadings, evidence, and settlement positions are coordinated so that nothing said in one set of proceedings undermines what is said in another.
What runs in three forums is still one dispute.
Industries served, repeatedly.
Legal strategy that ignores commercial reality is rarely worth the paper it is written on. The economics of a hotel project, the technical sequence of a construction contract, the cash position of the parties in dispute — those are the documents I read first. The law is what you bring to bear on them, not where the analysis begins.
How the work is done.
Direct counsel.
Every matter is run directly by the lawyer instructed. There is no handover, no second-shift partner, no time spent re-explaining the file.
Discretion.
The firm does not publish client lists, does not comment on instructions, and does not — absent express written consent — confirm or deny the existence of a retainer. What the client says, and what the file contains, leaves the firm only with the client's written instruction.
Selectivity.
The practice is held to a deliberately narrow caseload — accepted where the firm can be of consequence, declined where it cannot.
Counsel collaboration.
Where the brief warrants, we instruct leading counsel we know well — selected for the matter, the forum, and the strategy. Calling in specialist advocacy at the right moment is part of running a matter well.