Dr Hamid Harasani

Hamid is the co-founder of Harasani & Alkhamees Law Firm. He is a Saudi qualified lawyer with extensive experience in litigation, corporate, employment and private client law.

Hamid holds a Shariah law degree from the Islamic University in Madinah, a Graduate Diploma in Law from BPP Law School, a Legal Practice Certificate from BPP Law School, an LL.M from McGill University, and a PhD in law from King’s College London.

Hamid has extensive experience in both contentious and non-contentious employment work including drafting contracts and policies to ensure alignment with Saudi labour laws and regulations, assisting key clients with restructuring their workforce with minimal impact, and representing both employers and employees at various levels of the Saudi employment tribunals.

Munir Suboh

Partner at BSA

Munir joined BSA Ahmad Bin Hezeem & Associates LLP in 2018 as a Partner and Head of the Intellectual Property Department, based in our Dubai office. He began his practice in the Middle East since 2006 and has worked on numerous scopes of IP contentious and non-contentious works, including trademarks, trade names, copyrights, patents, trade secrets, domain names and others. He also worked on commercialization and complex disputes of IP rights.

Munir has been advising high net clients in setting up regional strategies for protection of IP rights on the prosecution, protection, transactional and enforcement. Munir represents a range of clients from various industry sectors, including Media, FMCG, Tobacco, industrial, pharmaceuticals and many more. His principal set of expertise encompasses negotiations, settlement mandates and litigation. He has successfully resolved critical commercial disputes related to media, technology and IP deals. He has extensive experience in regulatory works and has experience in consulting clients on consumer protection, antitrust and competition law.

Magdalena Konig

Magdalena is an experienced commercial, technology and outsourcing lawyer. She has acted for a range of private and public sector clients and has particular experience in the automotive, franchise and ICT industry. She has advised on multiple multifaceted business and IT transformation projects. She also has vast in-house experience, having completed secondments with Jaguar Land Rover, PSA Peugeot Citroen, British American Tobacco, Compass Group and Informa PLC.

Today, working at a well known UAE conglomerate, she advises the group and its diverse business units. She focusses on complex UAE, pan-GCC and international franchising and IT projects.

Thamer Ibrahim Arab

CEO, Dhaman Hospitals

THAMER IBRAHIM ARAB is the CEO of the Health Assurance Hospitals Company (DHAMAN). He has fulfilled this role since October 2021. He has held several leadership executive positions and board memberships in significant institutions with a career of over 25 years. His career includes accomplishing tangible achievements in large banking, insurance and aviation institutions. Thamer holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from California State University and several specialised training programs in many areas, such as leadership, strategy, economics, and operations.

Joanne Fischlin

Joanne is an experienced counsel with both private practice and in-house backgrounds. She is admitted to the Geneva Bar and a candidate to become a Solicitor of England and Wales.

During her career, Joanne held various senior legal management positions in different industries

including Retail, Manufacturing, FSI and now Technology. She worked and advised on a large number of opportunities and issues across EMEA and LATAM, allowing her to build extensive knowledge in multiple areas of the law across jurisdictions. With experience in the management of large litigation portfolios and several board assignments, she also has strong capabilities in risk management, governance and compliance.

Today, Joanne leads the Corporate, External and Legal Affairs team at Microsoft for the Gulf region, helping companies on their digital transformation journey and supporting regulators in their efforts to embrace technology with best in class governance and compliance in mind.

Shiraz Sethi

Senior Legal Consultant, Dentons

Shiraz is highly rated for his contentious and non-contentious employment work, and advises multinationals and local companies on all aspects of UAE labor law and DIFC employment law issues.

His practice covers both contentious and non-contentious employment matters. From a non-contentious perspective, he regularly advises on offer letters, employment, consultancy and secondment contracts; provides advice on immigration and visa requirements, medicals and certification of documents; and frequently reviews employee handbooks and company policies to ensure they are updated and in accordance with local legislation.

He also has extensive experience advising on terminations and the visa cancellation process, and specializes in running complex disciplinary procedures from commencement through to completion.

John Benjamin

John is a Partner in DWF London office specialising in technology and privacy law. He has a broad ranging practice covering both the transactional and litigation fields. He is also highly experienced in negotiating complex commercial agreements and intellectual property related issues.

He has played a key role in some of the technology industry’s largest and most complex transactions and advised a client base of leading global financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies, as well as social media, consumer electronics and FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 organisations.

John has a particular expertise in data protection and freedom of information matters. In addition to his transactional experience, he has led on a wide range of contentious matters within these fields, he has a particular interest in advising companies where data is part of their core assets. He also has an interest in mass claims following data breaches and advising companies on complex cross border issues governing the exporting of personal data in connection with regulatory investigations.

John has represented clients on privacy matters in front of the Information Tribunal and the High Court. He has also managed cross-border litigation for clients in a number of jurisdictions around the world. He is noted for his expertise in privacy-related litigation and advising on the transfer of data in the context of cross-border litigation.

Abeer Al Husseini

Director at Fragomen, Dubai

Abeer is a Director at Fragomen’s Dubai office, where she has been a member of the team for eight years. Abeer has extensive expertise is in various UAE jurisdictions to assist UAE-based companies with their immigration and compliance needs, as well as other countries across the Middle East and North Africa region.

Abeer assists clients from a variety of industries, including construction, information technology, media, oil and gas, and finance. She helps companies redesign their existing immigration models to ensure maximum efficiency as well as implement process improvements.

In addition, Abeer has managed the immigration-related aspects of several high and medium volume projects involving mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs and other types of corporate restructuring activities.

Prior to joining Fragomen, Abeer worked in government and diplomatic services.
Abeer speaks Arabic and English.

Shaaban Metwally

Shaaban is a Partner in BSA’s Litigation practice, based in the DIFC office in Dubai. Practicing since 1991, he specialises in various types of litigation and dispute resolution including insurance and reinsurance, debt recovery, maritime, commercial, real estate and other dispute.

Shaaban predominately acts on behalf of international clients including insurance and reinsurance companies, multinational, real estate companies and oil and gas companies.
In addition to representing and advising clients during litigation proceedings, Shaaban has successfully concluded settlements on behalf of clients, provided pre-litigation advice and put forth strategies for clients to follow in order to ensure a positive conclusion to a dispute.