Dubai: The legal departments of OSN, Johnson Controls Middle East & Africa and DIFC Academy of Law were among the big winners at The Middle East Legal Awards 2018, which took place in Dubai on Thursday.
The trio were named as Legal Department of the Year - Large Team; Legal Department of the Year - Small Team; and Legal Department of the Year – Government Department and Agency or Public Body, respectively.
The award for General Counsel of the Year went to SEDCO Holding’s Dr Zaid Mahayni.
The ceremony, which was attended by nearly 400 lawyers from in-house legal departments and law firms, was jointly hosted by London-based business law news website Legal Week and the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Middle East Chapter, and supported by Legal Week’s sister publication, The American Lawyer. The ceremony took place directly after the Corporate Counsel Forum Middle East which was held on the same day at the same venue; which saw over 200 in-house counsel come together for a full day of peer-to-peer networking, topical discussions and interactive workshops.
The evening culminated with The ACC Middle East Achievement Award which went to Mark Beer OBE, chief executive of the DIFC Dispute Resolution Authority.
DLA Piper was named International Law Firm of the Year while Baker McKenzie secured the Regulatory and Investigations Team of the Year.
Additional winners included Simmons & Simmons, named TMT Team of the Year, Clyde & Co won Arbitration Team of the Year and Litigation Team of the Year, and Al Tamimi & Company was named Regional Law Firm of the Year – large team.
The awards’ judging panel was chaired by Dean Sheehan, PepsiCo’s vice-president and general counsel for Middle East and Africa.
