While Kassim Legal is a specialist corporate law firm and rarely if ever serves as lead counsel on contentious matters, we do however regularly serve as special regional counsel and as consulting experts on much larger disputes pending in the United States, the United Kingdom, or in one of the Eurozone countries that involve the MENA region. Our services in this practice area can range from asset tracing, recovery, and disposition to filing ancillary proceedings in one or more MENA countries. As a small, independent, and highly specialized corporate law firm, Kassim Legal is often the preferred law firm for clients that require on-the-ground litigation support and assistance within MENA.
We regularly operate across the MENA region and through our cross-border transactions and fraud investigation and assessment work, we have developed unique and unparalleled expertise on all aspects of asset tracing, recovery, valuations, and dispositions.
Regional MENA Counsel
As the preferred boutique law firm for conducting on-the-ground litigation reinforcement within MENA, Kassim Legal offers a full range of services which includes:
- Ancillary Proceedings
- International Discovery
- Asset Tracing & Recovery
- Asset Valuations and Dispositions
- Local Law Assessments & Opinions
MENA Litigation Reinforcement: On-the-ground litigation assistance and support
The byproduct of cross-border transactions is sometimes cross-border and international litigation and disputes. Cases may be filed in one jurisdiction but require that the bulk of the discovery and fact-finding aspects of the litigation be conducted in an entirely different jurisdiction. While discovery is a well known legal concept under US law and in some other common law jurisdictions, it is virtually unknown in the MENA region. Conducting international discovery in MENA may require commencing ancillary proceedings, domesticating interim awards and judgments, and a host of other legal remedies to enforce international discovery requests and awards. Also, conducting any type of fact-finding investigations in the MENA region requires local expertise and sometimes more importantly, local networks in order to be conducted effectively and discretely.
Whether it is locating key witnesses, conducting international discovery, or requiring certain ancillary proceedings be filed to enforce interim measures and awards, Kassim Legal has the knowledge and expertise to assist on even the most complex international disputes that involve the MENA region.
Asset Tracing & Recovery: Assessing litigation
A second common request we receive is to domesticate foreign court judgments and arbitral awards within MENA. Almost all MENA countries have rules and regulations that prevent their courts from recognizing foreign judgments and arbitral awards that violate local public policy provisions. These public policy provisions vary greatly from one MENA country to another and can include having large unsubstantiated awards that are not based on actual damages to judgments that award one of the parties interest on their claim.
However, even before filing domestication proceedings for any foreign court judgment or arbitral award, clients are often advised to verify that there are even recoverable assets within a particular MENA jurisdiction. Conducting any type of asset tracing on a particular defendant requires in-depth knowledge and expertise of the various asset registries that exist within a particular MENA country not all of which are publicly available or even if they are, easily accessible.
As one of the leading corporate boutique law firms in the region, Kassim Legal regularly assists clients conduct on-the-ground asset tracing and recovery investigations.
Asset Valuation & Dispositions
Finally, the third most common request our firm receives is to evaluate, transfer, and dispose of assets located in the MENA region. This most often occurs during international inheritance or liquidation proceedings where the liquidated company or the deceased owned assets located in one or more MENA country. The type of assets can range from real estate to intangible property such as machinery and equipment to ownership interests in closely-held companies. Ownership of real estate and shares in certain types of licensed companies, especially those in the construction or transportation fields, are often restricted to the nationals of that MENA country where that asset is located. Therefore, in cases where the liquidated company or the heirs of the deceased are not nationals of that MENA country, they technically cannot come to own those assets and therefore cannot sell or dispose of them.
However, over the years, Kassim Legal has developed a host of legal strategies to ensure the smooth transfer of assets from one party to the next and more importantly, to evaluate and effectively sell and dispose of those assets whether the asset is real estate, equipment and machinery or an ownership interest in a closely-held company. As the leading corporate boutique in the MENA region having worked on hundreds of cross-border commercial transactions, Kassim Legal is in a unique position to assist clients evaluate and dispose of any assets located within the MENA region.
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While Kassim Legal rarely if ever serves as lead counsel on contentious matters, we regularly serve as special regional counsel on much larger disputes that involve the MENA region. Our services in this practice area can range from providing litigation support and assistance to asset tracing and recovery to asset valuation and disposition. As a small, independent, and highly specialized corporate law firm, Kassim Legal is often the preferred law firm for clients whose international disputes involve the MENA region.