Dubai has one of 3 top commercial courts

The Capital Club, Dubai’s private business club and a member of the Enshaa group of companies, last Thursday hosted a business lunch for members to learn about the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts (DIFC Courts) and the role they have played in making Dubai the world’s best place to do business.

The business lunch included a question and answer session following a talk by Mark Beer OBE, Chief Executive and Registrar of the DIFC Courts. It was presented by the Capital Club in association with the Australian Business Council Dubai and the Canadian Business Council as part of the Capital Club’s ongoing series of events to improve its members’ understanding of the business environment.

“At the Capital Club we are always looking for ways to give our members a competitive advantage,” said the Capital Club’s General Manager, Emma Cullen. “That means not only providing Dubai’s best place to relax, socialise and do business, but also ensuring they know about the structures and services that exist to support their work. The DIFC Courts are one of the strongest commercial courts in the world. The more our members know about the advantages they confer, the better.”

Present at the business lunch were two of the leading business councils in the UAE. Mr. Beer began by reminding those present of the UAE’s success last year in securing the World Expo 2020 and the focus on partnerships in the areas of art, education, justice and women’s empowerment. These were things that many people outside the Middle East did not know the UAE had to offer. Likewise, Mr Beer said, many people do not know about the DIFC Courts and how they are open to all to use to secure their business.

If asked, many people still say the best place to solve business disputes is London. But, Mr Beer said, London’s commercial court system was in large part modelled on the South Australian courts. Canada during the same period has become one of the world’s leaders in commercial law by combining the best elements of civil law and common law. And at the same time, Dubai has undergone its own transformation.

Why did this happen, Mr Beer asked? In 1985, the leadership of Dubai identified that the fulcrum of global trade was moving eastwards. There were huge opportunities to become a hub of global trade but many of the world’s leading institutions wanted to operate in an environment which was familiar, as they did in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, New York, Sydney and so forth.

And so the Dubai International Financial Centre was set up, with courts operating in English to the highest international standards. Overseeing them is a chief justice from Singapore; and their judges include the former chief justice of Malaysia and the former heads of commercial courts in Britain and Australia.

“We are open to all to protect business operating in, with and from the Middle East,” said Mr Beer. “The SME sector used to tell us that if an invoice under Dh20,000 wasn’t paid  it wasn’t worth going to court. Now that’s changed. We have a small claims tribunal in which 90 per cent of claims are settled within three weeks.”

In fact, Mr Beer said, the DIFC Court is now chosen by many businesses in preference to courts outside the Middle East because the DIFC Courts decisions are enforceable by treaty across the region. The DIFC’s rulings are enforceable in the UAE as a matter of the constitution, in the GCC under GCC protocols and in the Arab world under the Riyadh Convention. They are enforceable in China, France and India by treaty and enforceable under common law in the courts of Australia, Britain, Canada and elsewhere.

“So for the first time we have an English language commercial court whose rulings are enforceable around the world,” said Mr Beer.



 

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