Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 15:15:14 GMT Server: Apache/1.1.1 Content-type: text/html Content-length: 15695 Last-modified: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 21:42:35 GMT
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Washington, DC, USA | Kuwait |
700 13th Street, N.W., Suite 950 Washington, D.C. 20005-3960 USA Tel: 202-347-2400 Fax: 202-347-2229 |
Al-Sahab Tower, Suite No. 3 Mohammed Thunian Al-Ghanim St. Al-Salhiya P.O. Box 5706 Safat-Kuwait Tel: 011-965-244-7415/6 Fax: 011-965-246-6780 |
Ali & Partners is a Middle Eastern law firm with offices and affiliate offices across the Middle East. In 1991, the firm established an office in Washington, D.C., which now serves as our headquarters and exclusively practices Middle Eastern law. The firm offers a full range of legal services to a diversified client base, including well-known multi-national corporations resident in North America, Europe and Asia. As the only Middle Eastern firm with offices in the United States, we can offer
particular value to our clients through our ability to serve them on Middle East law from both the US and the Middle East
offices. In addition to serving our clients, our lawyers serve as experts on Middle Eastern laws to numerous US and English law
firms in both transactional and litigation matters.
One of the defining aspects of Ali & Partners is that we are a multi-regional firm. Along with our Washington office, we have two regional offices in Kuwait and Oman. These offices coordinate with our affiliate offices in other jurisdictions to facilitate client work throughout the Middle East, particularly, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen and Lebanon. Our staff includes multi-jurisdiction attorneys who are utilized by all our offices as and when needed. Finally, our
firm maintains a large network of relations with the public and private sectors in each jurisdiction, as well as an open dialogue
with officials on the development and reform of various laws.
In addition to being multi-regional, we maintain a multi-dimensional practice. The firm has been responsible for numerous precedent setting cases before the Court of Cassation (the highest court in civil law countries) and has been involved in several innovative legal transactions. The following summaries, while not capturing the full scope of the firm’s work, offer a general view of the areas in which our firm practices.
Ali & Partners is a leading advisor on all aspects of doing business in the Middle East and Gulf Regions. We advise a wide spectrum of clients on the intricacies of setting up business in the various jurisdictions and the legal ramifications of all the peripheral issues involved in the process. Examples of the issues with which the firm deals in advising a client on the formation of a business in a specific jurisdiction are: finding an acceptable agent, researching the forms of businesses allowed in the
jurisdiction; structuring the business to conform to both the client’s and the jurisdiction’s requirements; negotiating and drafting
the relevant agreements; and obtaining necessary documents and licenses from the appropriate ministry, to name a few.
The firm also advises its clients on more specific corporate and commercial issues. One of the most common and helpful services we provide to our clients is reviewing existing agreements and documents to determine if their terms are within the laws of a particular jurisdiction. We also advise clients doing business in a certain jurisdiction of obligations they may face of which they may be unaware, for example, offset programs. As a result of having offices throughout the relevant region, we are able to offer our clients a superior level of region-specific work, such as due diligence, translations and location of agents and other
sources.
The firm maintains active contact with our clients. We monitor the local daily newspapers and the official Gazette of the various jurisdictions for items of interest to our clients and items that may affect our clients’ business dealings in their specific regions. Additionally, we monitor the legislative processes of the various countries and notify our clients of recent enactments that may be of relevance to them.
With the recent movement toward privatization of government-owned entities in the region, the work of the firm in this area is growing rapidly. Advice on these matters begins with the tender process and usually proceeds through to the completion of the project. Our lawyers are always abreast of bid offers by the governments of the various jurisdictions, and advise our clients on prequalification for those tenders which may be of interest to them.
The firm has had the privilege of working on several major projects in this area. Among these projects is the firm’s legal work on behalf of the Export-Import Bank and commercial lenders in the Kuwait Shuaiba Petrochemical Project ("Equate"), a $2.4 billion joint-venture. The firm also represented a major U.S./French Consortium in a project involving the construction of a new waste water facility and the conversion of the current waste water treatment plant in Kuwait.
This area of law is particularly relevant to our commercial clients who have chosen to open branches in the Middle East region.
Advice on these matters generally focuses on the regulations surrounding the importation and exportation of goods in the
different jurisdictions. The regulations involve such issues as labeling, packaging, points of origin, etc. Additionally, the firm
offers advice on the various customs duties and tariffs, as well as the possibility of operating in existing free trade zones in the
region.
Another important aspect of business for corporations choosing to do business in the Middle East is intellectual property. Of
course, each jurisdiction has its own regulations regarding trademarks and patents and our job at Ali & Partners is to advise
our clients on these regulations.
Advice on these intellectual property matters includes searching, filing and renewing trademarks and tradenames, obtaining
patents and patent registrations and preventing the unauthorized use of client’s trademarks, tradenames and patents. The firm
advises on issues relating to various infringements, such as counterfeit and piracy, and on the means of remedying those
infringements. Additionally, we advise companies and organizations on intellectual property rights obligation under the various multilateral agreements of WTO and WIPO and the compliance of the affected countries
in the region.
The firm actively counsels a large number of clients on a wide range of issues relating to public procurements by regional
governments ranging from military to civil aviation. Our work in this area includes advising our clients on the procedure involved
for procurements in the jurisdictions, types of contracts subject to procurement laws and the different rules and regulations
affecting the process.
A secondary aspect to our work in advising corporate clients seeking to establish businesses in the Middle East is tax
ramifications. We advise our clients on the tax implications of forming the various types of companies permitted under each
jurisdiction. This advice includes advising foreign nationals employed in these jurisdictions, by either local or international
corporations, of the tax issues they will confront. Our work also involves assisting our clients in filing their taxes in the various
jurisdictions, where necessary.
This is another area of law where the work of the firm is growing at a rapid pace. In this age of the internet and global
communications, telecommunications issues are, more and more, becoming aspects of every day business. Ali & Partners has
been involved in groundbreaking work in this area in the Middle East. We have advised clients on setting up Internet Service
Providers and other International Record Carriers in different areas of the region, establishing franchise and agency agreements
for satellite services throughout the region and locating investors for mobile communications satellite systems.
Our work in this area also includes internet-specific issues. Our firm advises and assists clients in settling domain name disputes
and other internet-related problems. The firm has also assisted various financial institutions on their on-line service to their Middle
East clients.
Our firm also provides labor and employment law advice to our clients. Much of the firm’s work is in the form of opinions to
our clients relating to the labor and employment rules and regulations of the jurisdictions involved. For those clients establishing
businesses or offices in a particular country, in addition to drafting employee contracts, we advise and assist our clients in
obtaining all the necessary paperwork and documents to normalize and legalize their employees.
The firm’s work in this area also involves more employee-specific issues, such as advising clients on the interplay of local labor
laws and the laws of the country in which the employees where hired.
This area of work has been an integral part of Ali & Partners’ corporate practice for many years and is an area our lawyers
practice in every day. In addition to providing general consultancy on this area of the law, we advise our clients on myriad of
issues, including: the viability of investment funds under the laws of a jurisdiction; the feasibility of on-line investment fund
services; general issues relating to securities investments; regulatory implications in the various countries; general consultancy
relating to real estate investments and the issues associated with private placement initiatives. The firm also conducts due
diligence on behalf of its clients.
While the majority of the firm’s work tends to be transactional in nature, Ali & Partners also conducts litigation and arbitration
on behalf of its clients. Not only does our firm represent our clients in Middle Eastern courts, but we also assist other US and
English law firms in legal proceedings that relate to the laws of the region. This assistance can include serving and deposing
witnesses, providing expert advice on the laws of the region and advising on the feasibility of pursuing legal action in certain
jurisdictions.
Our firm also participates in arbitration proceedings on behalf of our clients. The firm has been involved in several arbitration
proceedings before the International Court of Arbitration and the American Arbitration Association and our lawyers are well
versed on the UNCITRAL rules. Additionally, the firm’s managing partner is a member of the Arab Association for
International Arbitration.
Another area that the firm is busy in is that of Industrial Projects, where our lawyers assist and advise developers in mega
projects. This work includes advising the client on administrative, environmental and constitutional issues, as well as dealing with
various public authorities. One example of the types of projects our firm advises on is the Kuwait Shuaiba Petrochemical Project.
As a result of the firm’s years of experience in this area of law, our lawyers have become experts on the administrative and
legal aspects of these projects in the various jurisdictions.
The firm counsels a wide range of financial institutions, US and European, on a variety of securities matters including the
applicability of the securities laws of the local jurisdictions to various financial and securities transactions involving local nationals
and corporations.
In addition to the general corporate and commercial work that the firm practices in, we also offer our clients a more specialized
emphasis in commercial agencies and franchising. We assist our clients by locating or providing background information on
potential agents and, once the appropriate agent is found, by negotiating and drafting the agency and/or franchising agreements.
More importantly, we provide our clients with advise on the ways and means of diluting the protections afforded to commercial
agents by the laws of the various jurisdictions.
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