Dubai: A member of Kuwait's ruling family, Shaikh Mesha'al Jarah Al Sabah, is suing Swiss bank UBS in Dubai, alleging unpaid fees.

UBS AG invited Shaikh Mesha'al to apply for a non-executive position with the bank soon after it became the lead adviser to Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunications Company (Zain) on the $10.7 billion (Dh39.30 billion) sale of its African assets, the Swiss investment bank said.

Shaikh Mesha'al, who is suing UBS for $21.4 million alleging he was not paid for helping the bank win the February 2010 deal to advise Zain, met executives of the Swiss bank in connection with his job application that spring, the UBS court filing said.

UBS said Shaikh Mesha'al expressed an interest in working for UBS at an April 2010 meeting in Kuwait on an "entirely separate and unrelated matter" to the Zain deal.

Shaikh Mesha'al said he had "enjoyed interacting" with two executives including Omar Al Salehi, a UBS managing director and vice chairman of investment banking for the Middle East and North Africa.

Al Salehi then invited Shaikh Mesha'al to apply for a non-executive position, UBS says. But UBS denied that constituted a job offer, and rejected the Shaikh's claims he had a verbal contract to help UBS become lead adviser to Zain, which sold its African telecoms assets to India's Bharti Airtel in March 2010.

UBS was awarded the contract to be Zain's lead adviser on the deal in February 2010, and earned a $22.5 million fee for its work, the defence says.

"At no point was any role offered," UBS said in the filings with the courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre, where Shaikh Mesha'al filed his case.

UBS said Shaikh Mesha'al met Alex Wilmot-Sitwell, then chairman and chief executive of UBS for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, in May 2010 as part of his application for the non-executive role.

Later in Dubai, he met with Carsten Kengeter, then the chairman and co-chief executive of UBS Investment Bank, and Christopher Niehaus, then the head of investment banking in the Mena region.

In his original claim, Shaikh Mesha'al alleged Al Salehi of UBS had proposed hiring him as a senior non-executive director as an alternative to paying a fee for his work in the Zain deal. He declined the offer, the claim said.

UBS denied this and said the bank and Shaikh Mesha'al "did not enter into a contract, verbal or written, as alleged or at all".