Dubai: Dubai’s highest court ended a 18-year-old commercial dispute between Emirati businessman Rashid Saif Hamarain’s inheritors and those of Kuwaiti businessman Yousuf Rashid Bu Rousli over the ownership of Hamarain Centre and JW Marriott Hotel in Dubai.
The Dubai Cassation Court drew the curtain on what is believed to be the longest and oldest ever commercial dispute between the two renowned families deciding that the Bu Rouslis own 80 per cent of the property [hotel and the shopping centre] while the remaining 20 per cent belongs to the Hamarain family.
Presiding judge Dr Ali Ebrahim dismissed the appeal of Hamarain’s successors and handed out an irrevocable ruling on Sunday, granting 80 per cent of the Muraqqabat-based hotel and shopping centre to the Bu Rouslis, hence ending the commercial dispute that first surfaced in Dubai courts in 1998. Gulf News obtained a copy of the Cassation Court’s verdict according to which the revenues of the litigating parties’ joint venture [hotel and centre] which are Dh577 million will be distributed according to Sunday’s ruling [80 per cent and 20 per cent].
A court-assigned committee of financial experts conducted an inventory and decided that the revenues are Dh577 million.
The data has to be modified in the real estate register at the Dubai Lands Department regarding the plot of land that accommodates the disputed hotel and centre to be distributed as per Sunday’s ruling, according to the judgement sheet.
The Dubai court had earlier refused to suspend a requisition order on the hotel and the centre.
The suspension was requested by Hamarain’s legal representative in the Dh4 billion commercial dispute over ownership of the property.
Sources close to the case told Gulf News that the Cassation Court based its ruling on a written document that was handed by the Hamarain family confirming that Bu Rousli owns 80 per cent of the property.
