DIFC laws to be ready in early July

A series of laws for the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) - laws regarding companies, insolvency, contracts, securities, Islamic finance and arbitration are being finalised and are expected to be released for consultation early next month.

Phillip Thorpe, chief commissioner of the DIFC Regulatory Authority, said these laws will be released for consultation for a few weeks after which they will be sent for the chairman's endorsement.

"Most of the laws are in the final stage and certain ones like the regulatory law and company law are ready for consultation," Thorpe told Gulf News.

On the federal law regarding the DIFC, without which the licensing cannot take off, Thorpe said, "We expect it to come any time now."

Acknowledging that the Federal Law took longer than DIFC expected, he added that by the time the Federal Law is ready, DIFC will be equipped with all the basic elements for licensing.

DIFC will also prepare a set of principles for licensed firms as well as individuals registered with DIFC.

Phillip Thorpe said that DIFC would encourage branch operations of firms, rather than incorporation, in order to make things easier and quicker.

"Launching branch operations, on the one hand will not involve larger capital under prudential laws. On the other, it will be less cumbersome for DIFC to license them as the authorities can avoid lengthy diligence process and checking," Thorpe added.

However, business operations like advisory services which are not capital intensive can very well go for incorporation.

Though it's the choice of the participants to decide on this issue, Thorpe expects that the first few licenses will have more branch operations.

There is serious debate within DIFC to bring down the number of categories to be licensed by the Centre from five to four.