Dubai & DIFC practice areas
Dubai and DIFC Practice Areas
Eight areas of Dubai and DIFC work, each with its own forum, its own governing instrument and its own procedure. Every topic page names the law it relies on.
Legal information about Dubai and DIFC matters. Not legal advice.
- 8 topics across the DIFC and wider Dubai regimes
- 94 guides on specific situations
- Written from the published decisions and the current laws
How this section is organised
The area matters less than the jurisdiction
Two legal systems operate in the same city. The Dubai International Financial Centre runs on its own body of DIFC law, in English, before the DIFC Courts. Most of Dubai runs on UAE federal law and Dubai law, in Arabic, before the Dubai Courts. Every area below is read first against that division, because a dispute that looks identical in commercial terms can follow a completely different route depending on which system governs it.
So these pages do not open with a service description. They open with the forum and the instrument: which court or tribunal can hear it, which law applies to the document, what has to be established, and what the procedure requires at each stage. The guides underneath take a single situation and work it through with the decision or the provision that governs it named in the text.
Disputes and how they are decided
Which forum hears the claim, how it is run once it is there, and what happens when there is an order or an award to turn into money.
DIFC Court disputes
Whether the DIFC Courts can hear the claim, how a claim is started and defended, and what happens at each stage.
15 guides
Arbitration
Seat, institution and governing law are separate choices. Challenging an award and resisting one are separate applications.
3 guides
Judgments, awards and enforcement
Recognition and enforcement are distinct questions, and a judgment is not an award. Freezing orders have their own test.
8 guides
Commercial and workplace
The agreements and relationships that generate most of the work: what was promised, what was performed, and which law the document is actually written under.
Commercial contracts and business disputes
Unpaid invoices, terminated agreements, guarantees and shareholder disputes under DIFC-law contracts.
32 guides
Employment
DIFC employment law is not the mainland regime. An employer's Dubai address does not decide which law applies.
19 guides
Business establishment and governance
Entity choice, directors' duties and corporate records in the DIFC and elsewhere in Dubai.
7 guides
Property and succession
Premises and estates, where the DIFC regime and the wider Dubai regime diverge most sharply and where the wrong assumption is the most expensive.
Property and leases
DIFC leases run under the DIFC Leasing Law. Property elsewhere in Dubai is a different forum and a different regime.
9 guides
Wills and succession
Which regime governs an estate, what a registered will covers and how probate is approached.
Read this topicLonger reading
94 guides on specific situations
The topic pages above are the overview. The guides take one situation at a time, in full, and can be filtered by subject.
Browse the Dubai and DIFC guidesMatters 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.
Not sure which of these your problem falls under
Most matters start as a jurisdiction question rather than a subject one. Send the agreement and the correspondence and the area usually settles itself.
Enquiries are handled in confidence. The firm conducts the matter and engages counsel from its panel of DIFC-registered advocates for any hearing.