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Dubai and DIFC Guides

Long-form guides on a single situation each, written from the published DIFC decisions and the current DIFC instruments, with the material they rely on named in the text.

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  • 124 guides
  • Each guide names its sources
  • One situation per guide

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124 guides, August 17, 2026 to November 5, 2026

Listed by date, most recent first. Use the subject filter to narrow the list, or open a topic page from any card to see the framework behind it.

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Showing 124 of 124 guides

Your Lender Had No Licence to Lend: Can It Still Claim the Agreed Interest in the DIFC?
Corporate & Commercial Law

Your Lender Had No Licence to Lend: Can It Still Claim the Agreed Interest in the DIFC?

In CFI 055/2020 the DIFC Court of First Instance dismissed a free zone offshore company's claim for the agreed interest on a USD 1,298,977 loan to a UAE resident, declared the loan agreement null and void and gave the borrower his costs, because the lender had dealt onshore against its own constitution and the JAFZA rules and had lent at interest without a Central Bank licence. The principal had been conceded under a consent order and is recorded as paid.

Commercial contracts
You Left a DIFC Private Equity Firm: Will Your Carried Interest Pay Out, and Who Covers Claims From the Portfolio Company You Ran?
Employment & LabourIn depth

You Left a DIFC Private Equity Firm: Will Your Carried Interest Pay Out, and Who Covers Claims From the Portfolio Company You Ran?

Carried interest pays only when the plan's trigger has happened, usually a distribution received by the house and credited to the plan account, and your leaver category fixes what you keep until then. In a 2025 DIFC Courts judgment on a private equity leaver's claims, the carry claim and the post-termination wages claim failed, and what survived the end of the employment was an implied indemnity for claims third parties bring over the portfolio company the employee ran.

Employment
Your DIFC Employer Stopped Paying Salaries and Is Heading Into Insolvency: Can You Still Recover Notice, Leave and Gratuity?
Employment & Labour

Your DIFC Employer Stopped Paying Salaries and Is Heading Into Insolvency: Can You Still Recover Notice, Leave and Gratuity?

The claims survive. The Small Claims Tribunal has awarded unpaid salary, three months' notice pay, leave pay and pre-2020 gratuity against a DIFC employer that had stopped paying and begun an insolvency process. What changes is recovery: a winding-up order bars any action without the Court's leave, turns the claim into a proof of debt, and the Preferential Creditor Regulations put most employee heads ahead of the ordinary creditors.

Employment
You Paid a Deposit Under a Letter of Intent to Buy Shares and the Deal Died: Can You Get It Back?
Corporate & Commercial Law

You Paid a Deposit Under a Letter of Intent to Buy Shares and the Deal Died: Can You Get It Back?

In SCT 298/2023 a letter of intent that made completion subject to a definitive agreement, and expired after 90 days, did not turn the deposit into the seller's money: the Small Claims Tribunal of the DIFC Courts ordered the AED 300,000 balance repaid with interest and dismissed the seller's lost-income counterclaim for lack of evidence.

Business and governance
Your Nominee Shareholder Will Not Transfer the Shares Back: Can the DIFC Courts Order It?
Corporate & Commercial LawIn depth

Your Nominee Shareholder Will Not Transfer the Shares Back: Can the DIFC Courts Order It?

Yes, where the nominee deed is governed by DIFC law and names the DIFC Courts. In July 2026 the Court of First Instance ordered a nominee shareholder to transfer his remaining 25 percent of an onshore Dubai LLC within 14 days, sign every form and hand over a signed undated transfer, after a trial he did not attend. A later notarised amendment to the memorandum did not displace the deed.

Business and governance
The Buyer of Your Company Backed Out Before Completion: Can You Claim the Price Difference?
Corporate & Commercial Law

The Buyer of Your Company Backed Out Before Completion: Can You Claim the Price Difference?

Yes, if the buyer's words and silence show it will not complete and you end the agreement properly. In a 2021 DIFC-law share sale, tried in the buyer's absence, the DIFC Court of First Instance awarded the sellers the contract price less what a later sale of the company's assets produced for the same 90 percent, and held that a warranty liability cap did not touch that claim.

Business and governance
Dismissed During DIFC Probation: What Notice, Pay and Benefits Are You Owed?
Employment & LabourIn depth

Dismissed During DIFC Probation: What Notice, Pay and Benefits Are You Owed?

During an agreed probation the DIFC Employment Law switches off the statutory minimum notice, and the Small Claims Tribunal has dismissed notice claims on that basis. Whether probation was still running, what your contract says about notice in probation, and the wages, leave and pension contributions due within 14 days decide what you are owed.

Employment
The Auditor Signed Off and the Company Collapsed: Can Shareholders Sue the Auditor in the DIFC Courts?
Corporate & Commercial Law

The Auditor Signed Off and the Company Collapsed: Can Shareholders Sue the Auditor in the DIFC Courts?

Shareholders can try, but a fall in share value may be treated as the company's loss, foreign law may govern, and limitation can end the claim first. In the only published DIFC shareholder case found, the Court of Appeal let shareholders add the audit partner as a defendant in 2019, then dismissed their appeal in 2023 because a five-year Lebanese-law period had run.

Business and governance
A DIFC Order Recognising an Arbitral Award Against You Has Been Served: What Can You Do in 14 Days?
Arbitration & ADRIn depth

A DIFC Order Recognising an Arbitral Award Against You Has Been Served: What Can You Do in 14 Days?

An award debtor served in Dubai with a DIFC recognition order made without notice has 14 days after service to apply to set it aside, and only on the grounds in Article 44 of the DIFC Arbitration Law. Public policy objections failed in every published DIFC decision found, and challenges made late or by another route have so far left the order standing.

Arbitration
Your DIFC Employer Filed an Absconding Case Against You After a Walk-Out
Employment & Labour

Your DIFC Employer Filed an Absconding Case Against You After a Walk-Out

An absconding request is not proof that you absconded. In SCT 241/2024 the Small Claims Tribunal ordered an employer to lift a case filed minutes after a walk-out and to cancel the visa, dismissed its claims for the filing cost and training fees, and still refused the employee her notice pay.

Employment
Your Customer Cancelled a Three-Year Software Licence and Stopped Paying: What Can You Recover in the DIFC?
Corporate & Commercial Law

Your Customer Cancelled a Three-Year Software Licence and Stopped Paying: What Can You Recover in the DIFC?

An instalment already due when the customer walked away is a debt, claimed without proof of loss. Later years are usually damages, with credit for savings and early receipt, and interest may follow the statute. A 2026 DIFC judgment awarded a software reseller the full three-year price, with 18 percent interest on the first year, but the customer did not appear at trial, so those findings are untested.

Commercial contracts
Your DIFC Tenant Keeps Paying Rent Late: Can You End the Lease and Recover the Arrears?
Property & Real Estate LawIn depth

Your DIFC Tenant Keeps Paying Rent Late: Can You End the Lease and Recover the Arrears?

A DIFC landlord can end a lease for unpaid rent, but a home needs an order of the Court under Article 54 of the Leasing Law, while an office, shop or restaurant lease can end under its own clause or the implied power of re-entry once rent is more than thirty days overdue. In the Tribunal decisions it was an unpaid instalment, not the history of late payment, that ended the lease.

Property and leases
Planning a DIFC Trust or Foundation for Family Assets: What the Court of Appeal Did and Did Not Decide
Corporate & Commercial Law

Planning a DIFC Trust or Foundation for Family Assets: What the Court of Appeal Did and Did Not Decide

As a matter of DIFC law, a trust can hold assets in a country that does not recognise trusts, and a foundation can hold property on trust for others. The Court of Appeal answered six of thirteen questions in 2021 and declined seven, including whether a Muslim settlor's transfer necessarily engages the federal inheritance rules, so nothing in it says a structure will survive an inheritance claim.

Wills and succession
The Buyer Is Holding Back the Last Instalment of Your Business Sale Price Over Warranty Claims
Corporate & Commercial LawIn depth

The Buyer Is Holding Back the Last Instalment of Your Business Sale Price Over Warranty Claims

A buyer can deduct warranty claims from the final instalment of a business sale price only as far as the share purchase agreement allows. In a DIFC judgment on an agreement governed by Kuwaiti law, most warranty heads failed for want of coverage, notice or proof, the balance carried interest from the due date, and the sellers lost their own claim for salaries paid for the period after completion.

Business and governance
You Lost in the DIFC Small Claims Tribunal: Can You Appeal to the Court of First Instance?
Civil LitigationIn depth

You Lost in the DIFC Small Claims Tribunal: Can You Appeal to the Court of First Instance?

You can appeal a DIFC Small Claims Tribunal judgment to the Court of First Instance only with permission, within 14 days of the decision, and only on law, procedural fairness, a miscarriage of justice or a DIFC law matter. Findings of fact stay with the Tribunal, a stray paragraph may be a slip to correct rather than a ground, and the appeal decision is final.

DIFC disputes
Your DIFC Landlord Announced a Rent Increase Weeks Before Expiry: Is It Valid?
Property & Real Estate Law

Your DIFC Landlord Announced a Rent Increase Weeks Before Expiry: Is It Valid?

If your DIFC residential lease ends in a few weeks and the landlord has only now asked for more rent, Article 31 of the Leasing Law makes the increase invalid, because written notice was due at least ninety days before expiry. Invalid is not the same as renewed: the Small Claims Tribunal gave one tenant ninety days at the old rent and then ordered her to leave.

Property and leases
Your Counterparty Went to Another Court Despite the Arbitration Clause: Can the DIFC Courts Stop Them?
Arbitration & ADRIn depth

Your Counterparty Went to Another Court Despite the Arbitration Clause: Can the DIFC Courts Stop Them?

The DIFC Courts can restrain a counterparty from pursuing proceedings elsewhere in breach of an arbitration agreement where the arbitration is seated in the DIFC. Without a DIFC seat or another statutory gateway there is no jurisdiction, the applicant's undertaking in damages may need security, and a conflict with the Dubai Courts can go to the Conflict of Jurisdiction Tribunal.

Arbitration
You Hold a Foreign Court Judgment and the Debtor Has Dubai Assets: Will the DIFC Courts Recognise It?
Civil LitigationIn depth

You Hold a Foreign Court Judgment and the Debtor Has Dubai Assets: Will the DIFC Courts Recognise It?

Usually yes, if the foreign judgment orders a sum of money, the debtor was bound by the foreign court's jurisdiction and the judgment is final where it was given, even with a challenge still pending there. Recognition is not onshore execution: since 2026 the Conflict of Jurisdiction Tribunal has tied DIFC execution to a sufficient connection with the DIFC.

Enforcement
You Cannot Serve the Defendant With Your DIFC Claim: Alternative Service and Dispensing With Service
Civil Litigation

You Cannot Serve the Defendant With Your DIFC Claim: Alternative Service and Dispensing With Service

If the Part 9 methods will not reach the defendant, the DIFC Courts can order service by an alternative method on evidence of a good reason, or dispense with service where the defendant already has the papers. The Court of Appeal has held that the Riyadh Convention's service provisions are not part of DIFC law, so the Convention does not stop either order.

DIFC disputes
You Lost a DIFC-Seated Arbitration: Can the Court Set Aside the Award?
Arbitration & ADRIn depth

You Lost a DIFC-Seated Arbitration: Can the Court Set Aside the Award?

The DIFC Court can set aside a DIFC-seated award only on the grounds in Article 41(2), and normally only within three months of receiving it. It will not revisit the merits, but in 2026 the DIFC Courts set aside all or part of two awards where the losing party never had a fair chance to answer the point that decided them.

Arbitration

Matters before the DIFC Courts are conducted by the firm, with counsel from its panel of DIFC-registered advocates engaged for the hearing. The firm acts as counsel in arbitrations seated in the DIFC and the wider UAE, and conducts the Indian proceedings that follow, including enforcement of UAE awards and judgments in India. This section is legal information, not legal advice.

Start from the situation, not the statute

Each guide takes one problem and works through what has to be established, what the records need to show and what the procedure requires.

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Enquiries are handled in confidence. The firm conducts the matter and engages counsel from its panel of DIFC-registered advocates for any hearing.