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Practice Areas :
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Practice
With offices in Doha, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and resident attorneys in Dubai, UAE, Patton Boggs is well-positioned to provide legal and policy advice to governments, government-owned corporations, investment institutions, and private business clients in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). With two offices in the region and the assistance of highly qualified local firms with whom the firm is associated in several countries throughout the region, Patton Boggs combines its local law skills, extensive regional experience, commercial and transactional experience, and deep understanding of international law and policy to offer clients practical legal, political, and business advice.
In 2003, Patton Boggs was provided the unique opportunity to open the first U.S. law office licensed to practice law in Qatar, when HH the Emir of Qatar invited Patton Boggs to open an office in Doha. The Doha office of Patton Boggs provides a full range of legal services to our clients in Qatar and elsewhere in the region, and this unique opportunity has deepened our firm’s knowledge of Middle Eastern culture, traditions, and legal requirements.
Working closely with the firm’s lawyers in our office in Doha, Qatar, and with lawyer teams that focus on UAE and Middle East regional matters from other firm offices, lawyers in our Abu Dhabi office provide full-service legal representation in a number of practice areas, including banking, business, construction, infrastructure, and project finance, oil & gas, international business, litigation, securities, real estate, and health care, among others.
Assignments that the firm has undertaken in the MENA region include:
- Representing multinational companies establishing local business entities, providing financing assistance, negotiating agreements with MENA government and private entities, and providing advice regarding compliance with U.S., international, and local laws.
- Advising Middle Eastern governments on bilateral and multilateral treaty negotiations with the U.S. Government.
- Representing Middle Eastern governments and government-owned entities before U.S. courts on many matters, including Foreign Sovereign Immunity and USA PATRIOT Act claims.
- Managing international arbitrations under ICC, UNCITRAL, LCIA, and AAA Rules.
- Supervising and instructing litigation teams across the Middle East, Europe, Russia (and the states of the former Soviet Union), and the United States in complex multi-jurisdictional litigation on behalf of MENA regional clients.
- Addressing and resolving regional boundary disputes in the Arabian Peninsula, Nile Delta, and Indus River regions.
- Structuring complex project finance transactions, including the provision of local law legal opinions to lender syndicates and owner/developer partnerships.
- Reorganizing and refinancing public/private international business consortia.
- Representing Middle Eastern governments in negotiations with U.S. academic institutions, health facilities, and multinational consulting firms.
- Representing Middle Eastern government and private entities in the development and financing of projects for the hotel and hospitality, aviation, tourism, banking, health, and education sectors.
- Representing financial institutions in Islamic finance transactions.
Patton Boggs has been privileged to represent such sovereign governments in the region as those of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait. Our corporate representation includes servicing the needs of many U.S.-based Fortune 500 clients doing business in the region, as well as foreign multinationals who require international corporate advice.
Patton Boggs has built a reputation for integrity and confidentiality, a high standard of ethics, and a creative and sophisticated approach to legal and business issues through many years of service to clients in this region. The firm has built an important network of personal relationships at the highest levels of the region’s political and economic leadership, and a deep knowledge of the region’s culture and traditions.
The MENA region is in the midst of historic economic and political change. The demand for its energy resources and the capital flows back to the region by its citizens to support its expansion in the real estate, banking and insurance, and tourism sectors is transforming the region’s economies. Expenditures by the United States and allied governments in Iraq and Afghanistan are promoting a new community of local suppliers of goods and services from the region’s economies. With these major opportunities for economic expansion, political reform, and global economic engagement in the Middle East over the coming years, Patton Boggs is uniquely positioned among the region’s law firms to support its clients’ participation and success in the regional market.
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