A DIFC Contempt Application Names You and a Director: How Do You Answer It?

If you or a named director has been served with a DIFC contempt application, treat it as a separate penal case with its own charges, not another step in the claim it arises from. A DIFC contempt application response is built charge by charge, because the applicant must prove every element of each alleged act beyond reasonable doubt and is confined to the acts in its application notice. A company's failure to comply does not by itself make its directors liable, and on the authorities as they stand the DIFC Courts cannot imprison a contemnor, although they can impose a fine, make other orders and refer the matter to the Attorney General.

This guide is for the respondent to a committal application under Part 52 of the Rules of the DIFC Courts (RDC), whether that is the company an order was made against or an individual named alongside it. It does not cover relief from a civil case-management sanction, or a way to postpone compliance with an order still in force.

Start with a charge-response schedule.

Why is a contempt application a separate case and not another step in the claim?

Because it is penal in character and carries its own procedure, standard of proof and charges. A committal application must be supported by an affidavit, and in existing proceedings it is commenced by an application notice in those proceedings (RDC 52.3, 52.5 and 52.6). The notice and all written evidence in support must, unless the Court directs otherwise, be served personally, and the notice must state prominently the consequences of a committal order and of non-attendance (RDC 52.9(1) and 52.9(5)). The Court may not dispose of it without a hearing, the hearing date is not less than 14 days after service unless the Court directs otherwise, and it cannot be discontinued without permission (RDC 52.9(4), 52.17 and 52.25).

The substance follows the form. In Cesfin Ventures LLC and Cessna Finance Corporation v Al Ghaith Holding Company PJSC and others of 24 March 2022, the Court held that the allegations had to be proved to the criminal standard, that the normal procedures of common law courts for criminal conduct apply, that the onus rests at all times on the applicant, and that the respondent need prove nothing in defence. In Naqid v Najam, ARB 004/2024 of 24 December 2024, the Court held that a heightened standard of procedural fairness must be maintained throughout.

What must the applicant prove against you, and to what standard?

Five things, each beyond reasonable doubt, and they are the first five rows of the table above, taken from Naqid. It is not necessary to prove an intention to breach, and enough that the respondent voluntarily engaged in conduct that resulted in one, but the disobedience must still be deliberate rather than casual or accidental.

Cesfin puts it the other way. The mental element attaches to the act or omission rather than to its consequences, so the applicant need not show the respondent knew the act would breach the order, and a belief that you were entitled to act as you did is no answer.

Three features shape every answer.

Does the application notice tell you what you are charged with?

It has to, within its own four corners. RDC 52.9(2) requires the notice to set out in full the grounds and to identify, separately and numerically, each alleged act of contempt including, if known, its date. In Naqid the applicant argued the notice could be read with its affidavits. The Court rejected that: the notice itself must give enough particularity to let the alleged contemnor meet the charges, cannot be supplemented by a supporting affidavit, and confines the applicant to the acts it pleads. RDC 52.30 bars reliance on any ground outside the notice except with permission, and RDC 52.22 lets the Court strike out an application disclosing no reasonable ground for alleging contempt.

How much detail is enough depends on the order. A notice saying only that a prohibition was breached is generally insufficient. Where ordered asset information was simply not given, a notice saying so is generally enough. Where some information was provided and is said to be incomplete, the applicant must specify the assets not disclosed or the information required and not provided. One ground in Naqid concerned receivables released by a court elsewhere, and the Court held the company could not be found guilty on a ground absent from the notice, refusing an amendment application issued on the second day of the hearing, in part because it came too late. The judge also recorded that the strike-out application had been properly brought.

How will the Court read the words of the order you are said to have breached?

Strictly, and on the wording actually used. Naqid applies three principles from the English authorities. The primary question is the meaning of the order, not whether it should have been granted or granted in those terms. The terms are construed restrictively, because an order must be clear and unequivocal before a party can be found in contempt. The words carry their natural meaning in context, with strict construction favouring whichever reading is least onerous for the respondent.

The freezing order in Naqid showed what that means. One paragraph let the company deal with assets outside the DIFC so long as the total encumbered value of its assets stayed above a threshold. The applicant said the word was a typographical error to be corrected to unencumbered. The Court observed that the error may have been the applicant's own, the order having issued on its draft and generally following the standard form in Schedule A to RDC Part 25, but held that a lay respondent would not find it obvious and that the order had to be read as written. There was no breach.

Were you served, and did you know the terms of the order?

Service and knowledge are separate elements, both worth checking. Service of the order and service of the committal application are two different questions. RDC 52.9(1) governs the second, requiring personal service of the notice and the written evidence unless the Court directs otherwise, RDC 52.10 lets the Court dispense with it if it thinks it just, and RDC 52.26 lets it waive a defect if no injustice has been caused. In the committal judgment in SBM Bank (Mauritius) Ltd v Renish Petrochem FZE and others of 19 October 2021, the applicant's own draft order conceded that service by email to the respondents' legal representatives did not comply, and the judge held it defective. He then deemed it served on the date of that email, because no address for personal service had been given. In Oswin the Court dispensed with personal service on one individual under RDC 52.9(1) and 52.10, the point having been taken at the very last minute, and waived the applicant's own affidavit defect under RDC 52.26.

Knowledge is where SBM helps a respondent. Asked to find that the respondents had known of the order shortly after it was made, the judge refused: an email that did not bounce back, the individual's departure from the United Arab Emirates and the closure of the company's office was circumstantial and did not prove knowledge to the criminal standard. Three of the twelve alleged breaches were not proved, but the respondents still lost, because on their own account they had learned of the order months earlier and made no attempt to comply. A company cannot sit behind an officer's ignorance either: Cesfin holds that once a company has notice and fails to comply, the contempt is proved without proof that any individual knew.

Does the company's breach make a named director personally liable?

No, not automatically, and this is where carelessly drafted applications fail. Naqid dismissed both committal applications against the individual respondents, holding that a company's breach does not automatically disclose a case to answer against all its directors. They are liable only where, aware of the order, they actively assisted the breach or wilfully failed to take reasonable steps to see it obeyed, with wilful distinguishing the case where a director can reasonably believe another officer is taking those steps.

The procedural half matters as much. An applicant relying on a company's breach must plead in the committal application a case for that director's responsibility, on the ground either of aiding and abetting or of wilful failure to take reasonable steps, and the substantive law does not excuse it from RDC 52.9(2). In Naqid the notices mentioned the individuals only in the orders sought, listed the alleged acts against the company alone, and relied on an affidavit asserting that all were the directing minds, with nothing behind it.

Key takeaway. A director named in a contempt application answers two questions: whether the company breached the order at all, and whether the applicant has pleaded and proved that this director assisted the breach or wilfully failed to prevent it. Office alone is not a case to answer.

The point cuts both ways. In Oswin two individuals who gave the instructions behind a company's breaches were themselves found in contempt. Where the evidence shows a decision to ignore the order, the finding follows.

What if you complied, but late or imperfectly?

Late or partial compliance does not undo a breach that has already happened, but it changes what the applicant must specify. SBM is plain on the first half: a respondent able to comply later does not turn back the clock, and an adjournment would not change what had occurred. A finding of contempt does not make the original order evaporate, the obligation continues, and further proceedings may follow for further failures.

Naqid supplies the second half. The freezing order there required asset information within 72 hours of service and to the best of the company's ability, with a verifying affidavit within seven working days. The company asked for more time, the applicant refused, and it then provided a detailed letter and an affidavit. On the charge that it had failed to give the market value of three vessels, the Court was not satisfied to either standard that it could have done so in the time: valuation needs a survey, and the company had ceased trading, had no employees and records in disarray.

Where the order does not say who must swear it, the verifying affidavit need not come from an employee: any person the company has authorised, with sufficient knowledge, may swear it.

How do you answer a charge of dealing with assets or paying for lawyers?

By identifying the positive act the order prohibits and asking whether it happened. In Naqid the applicant alleged that offering a vessel for sale and negotiating terms breached a prohibition on disposing of, dealing with or diminishing the value of assets. The Court accepted those words are alternatives and that a dealing requires a positive act affecting the asset's ownership, control or value: a sale, a pledge, a lease or an agreement changing its status or value. Negotiating a potential sale did none of those while no transaction was completed.

A legal-expenses charge failed for another reason. The order capped spending on legal advice and required the respondent to identify the source of funds and account monthly. Asked to infer from proceedings in three jurisdictions that the cap had been exceeded, the Court found no evidence of expenditure in the ten days between the order and the application, and found the parent company had paid the lawyers directly. On the argument that the respondent had thereby incurred a liability to the parent, the judge found that no such liability had been incurred, no loan having been recorded in the company's books, and left undecided whether incurring one would itself have breached the order.

Where the order contains an exception, the onus does not move. Cesfin concerned an order that excepted dealings in the ordinary and proper course of business. Although framed as an exception, the applicant had to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the transfer was not in that course, and the exception is conjunctive: ordinary meaning common or routine, proper meaning lawful and in good faith. The charge was proved: AED 7 million was by far the biggest transaction on the account in almost twenty months, it went through minutes after the bank opened on the first working day after notice, and the restructuring said to justify it was not completed for five months.

What evidence do you file, and can you be cross-examined on it?

Written evidence in opposition must be given by affidavit, and filing one, not only giving oral evidence, exposes its deponent to cross-examination. RDC 52.12 requires affidavit evidence for or against a committal application and RDC 52.13 requires it to be filed unless the Court directs otherwise. RDC 52.14 allows a respondent to give oral evidence whether or not written evidence was filed, and if he does so he may be cross-examined.

Cesfin shows what happens when a respondent files an affidavit and then keeps the deponent away. The applicant required all deponents of affidavits in opposition for cross-examination, the respondents advised none would be produced, and the Court offered a video link. When that was declined the judge held it implicit in the Rules that the Court may require the deponent of an affidavit to attend for cross-examination, and may exclude an affidavit where a deponent appropriately required is not produced without justification, and excluded it, adding that even if admissible he would give it no weight.

There is a tension on silence. Cesfin states that no adverse inference can be drawn from a failure to adduce evidence by way of defence, while SBM, a few months earlier, drew one from the individual respondent's decision not to attend or give evidence. A respondent with an answer should put it in evidence properly. In an order of 13 December 2021 in ARB 017/2020 and ARB 021/2021, respondents required to be cross-examined on their asset disclosure had a direction barring the applicants from using that evidence outside those proceedings, and in particular for any application to commit them, without permission. That is worth raising while an order is framed, although the Court gave no reasons for it and no party asked for it.

What can the DIFC Courts do if a contempt is proved, and can you still cure it?

They can impose a fine, permit a writ of sequestration against assets inside the DIFC, make other orders for the proper administration of justice and refer the matter to the Attorney General. The operative instrument is now Dubai Law No. 2 of 2025 concerning the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts, issued on 3 March 2025 and published in the Official Gazette of 14 March 2025. Article 35(A) provides that, in addition to the penalties prescribed in accordance with applicable legislation, anyone who commits any of six listed acts or omissions is to be punished with a fine prescribed by the DIFC Courts in accordance with the Rules of the Courts, the fifth being failure to comply with, or declining to act upon, a judgement, decision or order of the DIFC Courts. Article 35(B) adds any measures the Courts deem necessary for the proper administration of justice, or referral to the Attorney General.

The Law confers no power to imprison, and the opening words of Article 35(A), preserving penalties under other legislation, are why referral to the Attorney General is the route to a criminal penalty. Cesfin records the same conclusion under the earlier instrument: a DIFC judge had observed that the contempt jurisdiction would not extend to imposing a sentence of imprisonment, the Court agreed, and noted that the DIFC Court has no criminal jurisdiction and that its power to fine is generally regarded as regulatory or, at the highest, quasi-criminal. RDC Part 52 still speaks of orders of committal and of suspending their execution, and has not been conformed to the 2025 Law, but the powers Rule 52.37 preserves are referral to the Attorney General of Dubai, any other order necessary in the interests of justice including security for good behaviour, and a fine, and the form of notice in Appendix A to Part 52 warns a respondent of those three alone. Rule 52.37 still cross-refers to Article 43 of the Court Law 2004, which Article 43(A) of the 2025 Law supersedes.

Referral is the serious outcome. In Cesfin the judge said that had the company's contempt been committed by a natural person, and had he been sitting in a court with criminal jurisdiction, he would have had no hesitation in imposing a significant custodial sentence, and that a fine on the company would be futile because a substantial judgment against it was unsatisfied. He referred each contempt and each contemnor to the Attorney General of Dubai for consideration of criminal proceedings, and ordered each respondent to pay the applicant's costs. Costs run both ways: in Naqid, where the contempt and sequestration applications all failed, the order provided that in default of a costs minute the applicant would pay the respondents' costs of those applications. The Rules prescribe no scale for a contempt fine, so a published figure is one instance and not a tariff.

In Oswin, a committal decision under the 2025 Law, the Court fined each of two individuals and a company USD 75,000, payable within 28 days, with indemnity costs, and referred each to the Attorney General of Dubai, applying the Cesfin principles on sanction. It was prepared to suspend the referral if within a month they discontinued the foreign proceedings they had been ordered to stop, paid the fines and costs, and swore an affidavit undertaking future compliance. Whether they did is not published.

Curing the breach belongs to the sanction stage. In SBM the judge, having found the contempt, recorded that the respondents had not had a full opportunity to address the Court on sanctions, ordered further submissions and the individual respondent's attendance, and said he would consider all options. That respondent then applied to purge his contempt, and the Court listed a combined hearing for the purge application and the sanctions. Cesfin lists the mitigating factors as an immediate admission of breach, an admission of its seriousness, co-operation to mitigate the consequences, and a sincere apology.

Common mistake. Treating an intended challenge to the order as a reason to wait. An order in force must be obeyed until varied or discharged, an application to vary is not the variation, and relief from a civil sanction does not answer a penal charge.

These are the limits of the Court's own armoury.

How far do these powers reach outside the DIFC?

The contempt jurisdiction reaches the orders and the persons before the Court, but the Court's own enforcement reach is set by the 2025 Law and largely confined to the DIFC. Article 31 gives the Enforcement Judge jurisdiction over enforcement of final DIFC judgments, orders and decisions when the subject matter of enforcement is within the DIFC, and over foreign and local judgments and ratified awards where enforcement falls on an entity within the DIFC. Where the object of enforcement sits outside, Article 32 routes it through the Dubai Courts' Enforcement Judge, on five conditions including a final and executory decision and an official Arabic translation.

Naqid, decided before that Law, reached the same boundary for a specific remedy without citing any instrument. Two applications for permission to issue writs of sequestration were dismissed for the additional and fundamental reason that the Court has no power to seize assets outside the DIFC, and would not give permission against a company or individual with no assets within the jurisdiction. None of the specified assets was in the DIFC and none of the individual respondents lived there.

One historical passage should not be lifted. In Cesfin the Court rejected an argument that enforcement procedures could not reach conduct outside the DIFC, reasoning that if it could make a worldwide freezing order it must also be able to enforce it by contempt proceedings wherever the conduct took place. That argument rested on Article 7(2) of the Judicial Authority Law, Dubai Law No. 12 of 2004, since superseded, and the Court's own answer rested on its earlier holdings about the reach of a freezing order rather than on any statute. Read it as what it decided at the time, not as a current statement of territorial reach.

What should your response contain, and in what order?

The order breached and its variations, the service record, a charge-by-charge reading of the notice, a dated compliance chronology and an affidavit. The sequence below is a preparation order, not a filing plan, and the applications, evidence and timetable are for your legal representative to settle.

1. Obtain the sealed order said to have been breached, every later order varying it, and the service record, then identify the paragraph behind each numbered charge.
2. Read the notice against RDC 52.9(2) and tabulate, charge by charge, which act is alleged, on what date, against which respondent. Mark every charge that is unparticularised or names a respondent without alleging an act by him.
3. Check service of the application against RDC 52.9(1) and the hearing date against RDC 52.17, both subject to a contrary direction, and raise any defect at once rather than at the hearing, since the Court can dispense with service or waive a defect causing no injustice.
4. Keep complying with the order while the application is pending, and take advice before any payment or transaction that could touch it. Where a term is unclear or compliance impossible, apply to vary it or for directions rather than act on your own reading.
5. Build a dated compliance chronology for each charge: what the order required, what was done, by whom, when, and the document that proves it.
6. For an individual respondent, record what you personally knew and when, what steps you took, and where you reasonably believed another officer was taking them.
7. Prepare the written evidence as an affidavit under RDC 52.12, and decide with advice whether each deponent will be available for cross-examination and whether to give oral evidence.
8. Consider whether to apply to strike out under RDC 52.22, whether any charge can be met by correcting a continuing failure, and what you would say on sanction if a charge is proved.

What does the pattern across these decisions show?

These applications turn on the quality of the paperwork on both sides, not the moral colour of the conduct. In Naqid two committal and two sequestration applications all failed: one ground appeared nowhere in the notice and in any event depended on reading a word as the applicant had meant to draft it, another assumed negotiating a sale was a dealing, the case against the individuals rested on an unsupported assertion, and the sequestration applications failed again for want of power over assets outside the DIFC. In Cesfin and Oswin the contempts were proved on the documents. In SBM the respondents lost because months had passed with no meaningful attempt to comply.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a DIFC judge send me to prison for contempt? Not on the authorities as they stand. The DIFC Courts have no criminal jurisdiction, a judge has observed that the contempt jurisdiction does not extend to imposing a sentence of imprisonment, and the form of notice in Appendix A to RDC Part 52 warns only of a fine, other orders in the interests of justice and referral to the Attorney General of Dubai. The standard freezing order in Schedule A to RDC Part 25 nonetheless warns on its face that a respondent who disobeys may be imprisoned, fined or have his assets seized, which goes beyond what the Court itself can do, and the route to a criminal penalty is the referral.

The application names me as a director, so am I liable because the company breached the order? Not automatically. Naqid held there is no principle that a company's breach automatically discloses a case to answer against all its directors. The applicant must plead and prove that you assisted the breach or wilfully failed to take reasonable steps to ensure the order was obeyed.

The applicant has raised a breach at the hearing that is not in its notice. Can it do that? Generally not. In Naqid the Court held the applicant is confined to the acts of contempt set out in the application notice, that the notice cannot be supplemented by the supporting affidavit, and refused an amendment application issued on the second day of the hearing, in part because it came too late. RDC 52.30 bars reliance on grounds outside the notice except with permission.

I did not know the order existed. Does that answer the charge? It can, because the applicant must prove you knew the terms of the order or at least their substance. In SBM the Court declined to find knowledge shortly after service because the evidence was only circumstantial, although it found a breach on the respondents' own account of when they had learned of the order.

The order says something the applicant did not mean. Does the drafting error help me? It can. Because the consequences are penal the order is construed strictly on its actual words, and in Naqid a word the Court said may have been mistyped in the applicant's own draft was read as written, the Court holding that a lay respondent would not find the error obvious.

I disclosed some assets but not everything. What does the applicant have to specify? Where some information was provided, Naqid requires the applicant to specify the assets you failed to disclose or the information you were required to provide and did not. It states that as a principle, and refused to find contempt on an allegation about a vessel's location that appeared nowhere in the notice. An asset disclosure order should not demand more than is needed to police the freezing order.

Can I be cross-examined on my affidavit? Yes. Cesfin held it is implicit in the Rules that the Court may require the deponent of an affidavit to attend for cross-examination, and that it may exclude an affidavit where a deponent properly required is not produced without justification, giving it no weight in the alternative. Giving oral evidence under RDC 52.14 also carries cross-examination with it. Plan the evidence on that basis.

If I comply now, does the application go away? Not by itself. SBM holds that compliance later does not turn back the clock on a breach already committed and that the original obligation continues, so further applications remain possible. Compliance and a prompt apology go to sanction, in SBM the respondent filed an application to purge his contempt that was listed with the sanction question, and in Oswin the Court was prepared to suspend a referral to the Attorney General if the contemnors purged within a month.

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

Related Guides

See the Dubai and DIFC court disputes section and these related guides.

• You Missed a DIFC Court Deadline and the Other Side Wants Strike-Out
• You Won a DIFC Judgment but Cannot Find the Debtor's Assets
• My DIFC Freezing Order Stops Me Paying Rent and Legal Fees

Related Guides

Our DIFC Court disputes page covers jurisdiction, service, default judgment and setting aside, immediate judgment, disclosure, costs and appeals under the Rules of the DIFC Courts.

• You Need the Documents From Your DIFC Case for Another Proceeding
• The Debtor Is Moving Assets: Can I Get a DIFC Freezing Order?
• The Other Side Is Withholding Documents in Your DIFC Case