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

Apply for an order. If the methods in Part 9 of the Rules of the DIFC Courts will not reach the defendant, the claimant asks for alternative service of the claim form under RDC 9.31, which needs a good reason and evidence of what has already been tried, and the order must fix the method and the deemed date of service. Where the defendant already holds the papers but the attempt at service was defective, the DIFC Courts can dispense with service or remedy the error, as they did in May 2026. The Riyadh Convention does not by itself block either order. The Court of Appeal has held that its service provisions are not part of DIFC law, and said they are not the only valid route.

Four decisions mark the limits. Lahela v Lameez [2020] DIFC CA 007 upheld email service on appeal in 2021 after a treaty attempt failed. Oliwia v Omysha, ARB 003/2026 dispensed with service in May 2026 of a claim the defendant's lawyers already had. Orton v Oakes, ARB 035/2025 refused email service in September 2025. Pearl Petroleum v Kurdistan Regional Government [2017] DIFC ARB 003 is the decision Lahela said should not be followed.

Which ways of serving a DIFC claim form need no court order?

Four methods, each with conditions. RDC 9.2 allows personal service, courier, leaving the document at a permitted place and electronic communication. Under RDC 9.3 the party or its lawyer must previously have indicated in writing that it accepts electronic service and given the address, although an email address on a statement of case or response filed with the Court counts. A lawyer must be served where it is authorised to accept service and has said so in writing (RDC 9.9), and a contract can fix a method or address for later claims (RDC 9.44 and 9.45).

Outside the DIFC or Dubai no permission is needed and any method lawful there may be used, but compliance with that law is the claimant's responsibility (RDC 9.53 to 9.55). A claim form served in the UAE outside the DIFC needs a certified Arabic translation, and one served abroad a translation into the official language unless English is official there (RDC 9.29 and 9.59 to 9.62).

Deadline warning. The clock runs from issue: four months within the DIFC or Dubai and six months outside (RDC 7.20), and 30 days for an arbitration claim form unless the Court orders otherwise or the claim seeks recognition or enforcement of an award (RDC 43.9). No rule in Part 9 makes an application for an alternative method extend that period, and after expiry RDC 7.23 allows an extension only if the Court could not serve or the claimant took all reasonable steps, and acted promptly.

What do the DIFC Courts need before ordering alternative service?

A good reason, shown by evidence. RDC 9.31 lets the Court permit a method the Rules do not otherwise allow. The application needs evidence of why the order is sought and what has been done to serve by permitted means, and may be made without notice (RDC 9.32). The order must state the method and the date on which service is treated as made (RDC 9.33). For an arbitration claim form, RDC 43.11 confirms that the power covers service at the address of the lawyer or other representative acting in the arbitration.

The three powers in play do different jobs.

Orton v Oakes shows what the evidence must carry. The claimant wanted to serve an arbitration claim by email, on a company through its arbitration lawyers and on three sitting arbitrators, in four countries, citing the delay and cost of formal service. The Court refused. It asked whether the method was reasonably likely to bring the proceedings to the defendants' attention, and whether it was proportionate and fair, with the burden on the applicant. Authority to receive arbitral correspondence was not authority to accept court service, nobody had been asked to accept service, nothing showed the ordinary routes were impracticable, and slower service was not a good reason. Part of that turned on three of the defendants being sitting arbitrators, but the evidential points apply to any applicant.

Can the Court order service on a company whose lawyers refuse the papers?

It can, and the Court of Appeal has upheld such an order. In Lahela the creditor held a recognition and enforcement order made without notice, which gave the debtor 14 days after service to apply to set it aside and could not be enforced until then. After the treaty route failed, the creditor emailed the order on 23 February 2020 to the company's statutory manager, three lawyers at the firm that had acted in the arbitration and a person believed to be the company secretary, and every recipient sent a read receipt. One lawyer replied that neither the firm nor a named individual was authorised to accept service, and that the company did not accept the email as valid service.

On 17 March 2020 the Court granted permission to use alternative means, ratified the email service retrospectively and deemed service effective on the date of its order. The debtor's challenge failed at first instance and on appeal, where it was ordered to pay the costs. Its grounds of appeal attacked only the existence of the power, so Lahela decides that such an order can be made, not how strong the evidence must be. Without the written authority RDC 9.9 describes, serving the lawyers needed an order, as Orton also shows.

Does a service treaty such as the Riyadh Convention stop the Court?

Not on the Court of Appeal's reasoning in Lahela. The debtor was registered in Iraq, and the Court recorded that the UAE and Iraq are both parties to the Riyadh Convention. At the creditor's request the DIFC Courts sent the order to the court at Erbil, where service was ordered, then refused on the footing that diplomatic channels were needed, and the papers came back unserved.

The Court of Appeal gave two independent answers. First, the Convention's service provisions are not part of the law the Court applies. On the Court's reading, the federal law on financial free zones obliges the zone's corporate body not to do anything that may lead to a breach of the UAE's treaties, but it does not bind the Courts, and it leaves federal civil and commercial laws, including a rule on serving documents in this Court's proceedings, out of the DIFC. Second, the Convention is not an exclusive method. Unlike the Hague convention on service, with which the Court contrasted it, it has no provision on exclusivity, and its object is to ease co-operation between courts, not to make proceedings in one state depend on a court in another. The Court added that the Convention would not prevent dispensing with service in appropriate circumstances, and that a party can still ask the Court to use it.

Two limits apply. The Court left open a treaty that is exclusive and implemented in domestic law, where dispensing with service for the dominant purpose of avoiding it might be unlawful, and RDC 9.53 and 9.55 keep the claimant responsible for the local law. Lahela and Pearl predate Dubai Law No. 2 of 2025, which superseded Dubai Law No. 12 of 2004, the Judicial Authority Law, together with DIFC Law No. 10 of 2004 (Article 43), and leaves litigation procedure to DIFC legislation and the Rules of the Courts (Article 25). The searches behind this guide found later decisions citing Lahela and none departing from it.

Key takeaway. The Riyadh Convention channel is an option the DIFC Courts can use, not a precondition that a foreign court's refusal can turn into a permanent bar. Use it where it is realistic, record what happens, and bring that record to the application.

Why is Pearl Petroleum no longer followed on service?

Because the Court of Appeal said its premise was wrong. In 2017 the Court had recognised two London arbitration awards against the Kurdistan Regional Government without notice and permitted service of the order on its solicitors in the arbitration. The judge accepted that alternative service is available for defendants outside the DIFC or Dubai, and that likely obstruction of treaty service was an exceptional circumstance, but set the service order aside, holding that the treaty bound the DIFC Courts, that Article 6 of the Riyadh Convention prescribed the only permissible route, and that RDC 9.31, 9.34 and 4.51 could not be used. The recognition order stood but had to be served under the Convention. Lahela held that Pearl assumed an effect of the federal free zones law that the law does not have, so its service holding should not be followed. The practical point survives: until a recognition order is validly served, the period for applying to set it aside does not start and the award cannot be enforced (RDC 43.68 to 43.70).

Can the Court treat the claim as served when the defendant already has it?

Yes, and Oliwia v Omysha is the current example. The claimant issued a without-notice claim to recognise and enforce a foreign arbitral award while a freezing-order action between the same parties was running. On 8 January 2026 the Registry relayed a judge's direction to give immediate notice of the claim by emailing it to the defendant's lawyers in that action, and the claimant's email said it was sent by way of service. The defendant's counsel confirmed receipt at a hearing the next day, but the defendant then contested jurisdiction and applied under Part 12 to set the service aside.

The claimant's first two arguments failed. The direction was not an order for alternative service: it followed no application or witness statement, required notice rather than service, fixed no deemed date of service, and was made for the hearing in the other action. Nor had the defendant agreed to email service, because the address relied on had been given in different proceedings. Confirming receipt was not a waiver, which needs an act unequivocally renouncing the right to challenge service.

The fallback, RDC 4.51, succeeded. The Court reasoned that RDC 9.32 does not say that an order may be made only if its requirements are met, and RDC 9.34 sets no conditions at all, so the specific rules do not displace the general power. The Court adopted an earlier first-instance view that a failure to serve under the Rules is an error of procedure, that jurisdiction does not depend on service of the originating process, and that the power traces to what is now Article 27 of Dubai Law No. 2 of 2025: no proceedings are invalidated by a procedural irregularity unless the Court orders otherwise.

The cards restate what the Court weighed before excusing service.

The Court dispensed with service and treated the claim as served on 8 January 2026, adding that the direction made the claimant's belief understandable if not correct and that the defendant's application would only add delay and cost. Costs were provisionally USD 30,000 for the claimant, a case figure cut by a quarter because two of its three limbs failed. No later order was found, and the related application for permission to appeal the freezing order had no published outcome.

What should a claimant do, and in what order, when service stalls?

Build the evidence the application will need from the first attempt.

1. Identify who must be served and where, and any contractual method or written agreement to accept service.
2. Diary the service period under RDC 7.20 or RDC 43.9, with an earlier internal date.
3. If the defendant is abroad, check what the local law permits and the translations needed, and decide whether to ask the Court to serve through a treaty channel. A request for service through the Registrar must include an undertaking to pay the expenses (RDC 9.63).
4. Record every attempt, refusal and reply with its date, and ask the defendant or its lawyers to accept service, since Orton held the absence of any request against the applicant.
5. Apply under RDC 9.31 with a draft order naming the method and the deemed date of service, then serve exactly as the order says.
6. File the certificate of service, without which RDC 9.43 bars a default judgment.
7. If service was defective but the defendant has the papers, apply promptly under RDC 9.34 or 4.51 with evidence on connection, knowledge, prejudice and how the error arose.

What goes wrong is rarely the law. It is the record. Claimants treat email as service because the other side plainly has the papers, read a Registry email as an order, and call a defendant evasive without a dated attempt behind the word. Lahela and Oliwia succeeded on records showing what was sent, to whom and what came back. Orton failed on a record that showed no request to accept service and nothing to suggest the ordinary routes could not work.

One limit remains. Oliwia did not involve an expired service period, and the English decision it discussed concerned a rule with the same only-if wording as RDC 7.23, which suggests that a claimant out of time should look to an extension under Part 7 rather than count on RDC 4.51. Every source cited was read on the official DIFC Courts website on 15 October 2026. The rules pages carry no version stamp, the English Courts Law says the Arabic prevails, and searches of the published lists are not a court-file certification.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I serve a DIFC claim form by email? In three situations: the defendant or its lawyer has previously indicated in writing that it accepts electronic service and given the address, which includes an email address on a statement of case or response filed with the Court, a contract provides for that method, or the Court orders it as an alternative method under RDC 9.31. In Oliwia an address given in a different action did not count.

Do I need the Court's permission to serve a DIFC claim outside the UAE? No. RDC 9.53 says that permission to serve outside the DIFC is not required, but the claimant must comply with the rules on service of the place where it serves, and RDC 9.55 authorises nothing unlawful there. An ordinary claim form must then be served within six months of issue under RDC 7.20, with a translation unless English is an official language of that place.

The defendant's lawyers refuse to accept service. Is that the end of it? No. RDC 9.9 makes the lawyer the person to serve where it is authorised and has said so in writing, so a refusal means you cannot rely on that rule. You can ask the Court to permit service on the lawyers as an alternative method, as in Lahela, where emails to the company's lawyers and officers were ratified despite the refusal. Orton shows that such an application can fail without evidence of attempts and a request to accept service.

Must I serve through the Riyadh Convention if the defendant is in a member state? Not on the Court of Appeal's decision in Lahela, which held that the Convention's service provisions are not part of DIFC law and that the contrary 2017 decision in Pearl Petroleum should not be followed, and added that the Convention is not an exclusive method. The Convention route remains available, and the Court can be asked to use it.

Can the Court treat my claim as served if the defendant already has the papers? It can. In Oliwia the Court relied on RDC 4.51 to dispense with service and treat the claim as served on the date of the email, because the actions were connected, the same lawyers had held the papers from that date, the defendant suffered no prejudice and the Court's own direction made the claimant's mistake understandable. It is a discretion exercised on evidence, not an entitlement.

Is a Registry email telling me to send the papers an order for alternative service? Not necessarily. In Oliwia a judge's direction relayed by the Registry, requiring the claimant to give notice by email, was held not to be an order for alternative service, because it followed no application, required notice rather than service and fixed no deemed date of service under RDC 9.33.

Did the defendant waive its objection by discussing the claim at a hearing? Not in Oliwia. Counsel confirmed at a hearing in the related action that the papers had arrived, and the Court held that this was not an unequivocal renunciation of the right to challenge service, and that the defendant did not need to reserve its position at a hearing about something else.

What happens if service of my claim is set aside? A defendant who disputes jurisdiction applies under Part 12 within 14 days after filing an acknowledgment of service, and an order declaring that the Court has no jurisdiction or will not exercise it can set aside service or the claim form, discharge earlier orders or stay the claim (RDC 12.4 and 12.7). For an award recognised without notice, enforcement waits until the set-aside period after valid service ends and any application made in it is decided (RDC 43.70).

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified advocate for advice on your specific situation.

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