Brussels: The Middle East has always been hot. Now it’s heating up in a different way.
Two major law firms have expanded their presence in the region amid growing liberalisation of capital markets and opportunities for growth.
“Our clients and key investment banks have been pushing us to open in Dubai, and we are responding to client needs,” Marwan Elaraby, Middle East managing partner of Shearman & Sterling LLP, said in an emailed statement.
The Dubai office, the firm’s second in the region, will focus on capital markets and mergers-and-acquisitions investment “both from players in the region” and beyond, as well as infrastructure projects and disputes, Elaraby said.
Shearman & Sterling long had an office in Abu Dhabi and also has an association with Abdulaziz Alassaf & Partners in Riyadh, Jeddah and Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, the firm said in a statement.
“We continue to see the Middle East as a significant growth opportunity for us,” Elaraby said.
Dechert LLP, which has a capital markets practice in the region, has formed an association in Saudi Arabia with the Law Firm of Hassan Mahassni. The Jeddah-based firm focuses its practice on corporate, commercial and financial transactions, and litigates before the nation’s courts and other authorities, according to a statement on its website.
In addition to founder Hassan M.S. Mahassni, the firm includes partners M. Marwan Shaheen and Yousef Saleh Husiki Al- Ghamdi.
Dechert has an office in Dubai, where Chris Sioufi and Gavin Watson are co-managing partners. The firm’s capital markets practice in the emerging-markets region has been led by London partner Camille Abousleiman, “with lawyers advising on both equity and debt transactions,” the firm said in a statement. The firm worked on deals this year in Egypt and Tunisia “that marked the return of both countries to the US markets,” the firm said.
