ALANOUD YAQOUB AL-FAHAD is the Director of the Monopolistic and Competitive Investigation Department. With a total of 15 years of experience in law, she received her bachelor’s degree in Law, her master’s degree in Public Law, and her higher diploma in Private Law. Of her 15 years in the field, she has spent 4 years working closely with competition law.
Nils is a Belgian-qualified tax lawyer and member of the Brussels Bar with extensive experience advising on taxation across the GCC. Based in the Middle East since 2017, he works with multinational corporations, regional businesses, and government-linked entities on complex tax planning and compliance matters.
Chadi Salloum represents sovereign entities, multinational companies, regional utilities and financial institutions in a broad range of transactions, including corporate commercial, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, restructurings, renewable energy and other projects, private equity, privatizations, spinoffs, strategic alliances, tender offers, initial public offerings, rights offerings, and private placements of equity, equity-linked, and debt securities. Chadi is frequently lauded by leading legal directories. Chambers Global noted that “he has an impressive practice advising on energy projects and investment matters”; clients say that he is “a great pleasure to work with and combines depth of knowledge with dedication,” and that he “has a deep understanding of what drives and sustains a business and as a result his advice is consistently sound and practical.” He is fluent in English and Arabic, and is a French and Italian speaker.
Joanna Maria El Khoury focuses her practice on corporate and financial transactions. Previously based in Washington, DC, and Paris, Joanna has experience in cross-border matters across a number of jurisdictions including the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and North America. She advises in relation to complex mergers and acquisitions (M&A), divestitures, joint ventures, and corporate restructurings, and also has experience advising investment funds in private equity and venture capital matters. Joanna has also represented issuers and underwriters in capital markets transactions including both debt and equity securities offerings as well as sukuk, or sharia compliant bonds. She speaks English, French, and Arabic.
Julia is a senior associate in the Corporate and Commercial groups of our Dubai office.
She specializes in advising clients on mergers and acquisitions, cross border joint ventures, private equity investment, restructuring, franchise and agency/distribution arrangements. Julia furthermore advises on corporate governance, regulatory and compliance aspects, as well as general corporate and commercial matters.
Claire Melvin is Publisher for Middle East content at LexisNexis and has worked for Reed Elsevier for over 25 years.
During that time she has been the Publisher for the New Law Journal magazine, Inner Temple Year Book and Counsel Magazine, has run the Lexis Library and Tolley Library legal news service teams and was the Head of the Halsbury’s, Stair and Digest teams.
She also worked as Content Lead of the migration of content to Lexis Library.
She transferred to Lexis Middle East to launch the first Middle East online service and has had responsibility for law, news, cases, article and book content on that service since its inception.
She has also launched and run two Middle East Legal magazines, edited several books on Middle East Law and acted as an Editorial Adviser to the DIFC for the Laws of the DIFC series, DIFC Court Rules loose-leaf and the publication of an annual case report series.
Ahmed is an Associate in the Litigation team in Dubai. He has over 6 years of experience in Egypt and the UAE. His practice focuses on Banking, Real Estate and Construction related disputes before the UAE Courts and in arbitration.
Ahmed has advised on several contentious and non-contentious construction-related matters in both the litigation and arbitration practices. He has had exposure to construction claims that are mainly focused on the technical aspect as well as claims with commercial aspects only.
In particular, Ahmed has expertise in construction claims that had disputed variations, prolongation costs and extension of time applications. He had also been involved in claims that focused on the validity of termination of construction contracts and its consequences.
Ahmed is also well-familiarised with the FIDIC suite of contracts, and has acted in many disputes that are governed by the FIDIC conditions of contract before the UAE Courts and in arbitration, with a special focus on the validity of the arbitration agreements usually incorporated in such forms.
Justin is a senior associate in our arbitration department and has extensive experience advising clients in arbitrations governed by various institutional rules (i.e., ICC; UNCITRAL; LCIA; DIFC-LCIA; DIAC; CAS; FIFA and CAM) as well as in ad-hoc arbitration proceedings.
The disputes that Justin handles most frequently involve construction projects and international commercial agreements, including supply contracts, sale of goods (CISG) contracts and distribution agreements. Justin has also assisted clients in disputes relating to sport agreements.
Justin similarly has experience in non-contentious matters within the construction sector, such as negotiating and drafting construction agreements.
Admitted as a lawyer in New York State in 2014, Justin was also admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales in 2017 as well as an Avvocato Stabilito in Italy in the same year. He is fluent in both English and Italian.
Muhammad represented numerous entities and individuals in Egypt in various fields of law before joining Al Sulaiti Law Firm in 2010. He deals with both contentious and non-contentious matters in both English and Arabic. Muhammad’s experience exceeds ten years in litigation, corporate and contracts fields.
Muhammad enjoys an excellent experience in drafting, reviewing and negotiating various types of contracts in addition to his remarkable risk assessment and avoidance skills. Thus, he heads the Corporate & Contracts Department of Al Sulaiti Law Firm.
Emma is an employment lawyer with over 17 years’ experience. She was promoted to Partner of the firm in May 2018 and manages the employment practice in Qatar.
Emma incorporates her extensive knowledge of Qatari laws and regulations when advising both Qatari and international clients. Emma leads a team specialising in employment matters. Emma’s practice and team is/are based in Qatar, but Emma also draws on regional expertise where pressure of work requires it. This specialist team advises on the full scope of employment matters, including advising in relation to immigration, negotiating contracts and termination settlements, drafting and advising on policies and procedures, best practice and compliance and Labour Court claims. Emma’s employment practice incorporates health and safety capabilities.
Clients in this year’s Legal 500, referred to The ‘absolutely outstanding’ Emma Higham focuses on employment issues and ‘goes above and beyond’ for her clients, providing ‘in-depth knowledge of the law and practice in Qatar.