Freehills provides customised, international commercial advice to clients wishing to conduct business in the Middle East. Our ability to provide legal, commercial and strategic solutions is built on experience and the desire to understand the commercial context in which our clients operate in the Middle East. Our dedicated team of experienced staff covers all key transactional aspects from equity structuring and debt financing to tendering and full project documentation. Freehills ensures that the partner responsible for each project is across all key legal aspects of the transaction. This ensures that the project is delivered in an efficient, integrated and consistent manner, and that all documentation is properly coordinated and prepared to reflect the agreed commercial principles of the transaction. Our local knowledge and expertise is further supported by three years ‘on-the-ground’ experience in the Middle East.

We pride ourselves on being an experienced provider of tailored legal advice to clients—a service we have been delivering for more than 140 years. As one of the largest and most respected commercial law firms in Australia and Asia, our international skills and expertise have been honed through our work in Australia, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Middle East. We also have an established presence in Singapore, which has been servicing South-East Asia for more than three decades, and we currently advise clients on major international projects on every continent across the globe.

Our expertise is highly complementary to clients conducting global business, particularly in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where our infrastructure investment work is setting world best-practice standards.
Sarrah Coffey, Partner, says the market in the Middle East is quickly developing and constantly changing. ‘You need to have the skills, drive and expertise to swiftly mobilise to meet the changing needs of clients. A degree of “market savvy” is desirable, and the support of a truly integrated team, who identify and address issues and opportunities in real time, across all aspects of the transaction, is a key success factor,’.

We adhere to a ‘relationship’-based approach to assisting clients with major commercial transactions in the region. We utilise our established network of contacts and, where appropriate, partner with local law firms and consider local knowledge and domestic business practices when providing advice.

Clients are confident in the knowledge that our team comes with direct and relevant market experience, and we are currently acting on a range of significant infrastructure projects across the Middle East.

Our experience across key industry sectors includes:

• private and social infrastructure
• Public Private Partnerships (PPP)
• water & waste management
• financing and development of industrial projects and industrial cities, and
• property development.

Some examples of our recent experience in the Middle East include:

PPPs

Multiple clients – working alongside clients to structure, implement and deliver (on time and on budget) strategic PPP infrastructure projects for the emirate of Abu Dhabi – including: 

• the Industrial City of Abu Dhabi (extension phases 1 and 2) (also known as ‘ICAD II PPP’ and ‘ICAD III PPP’) 
• the first and second industrial cities of Al Ain (also known as ‘AAIC PPP’ and ‘AAIC2 PPP’), and 
• the Industrial Effluent Treatment Plant for the industrial city of Abu Dhabi.

These projects were the first PPP projects in the emirate of Abu Dhabi and included full non-recourse debt and equity structuring and D&C/DBO tendering and procurement.

Debt structuring

• finance – advising on non-recourse debt, equity and project structuring for the development of significant industrial plant.

Equity investments/structuring

• infrastructure/finance – advising a client on the establishment of an infrastructure investment fund, and
• infrastructure – assisting clients with evaluating the opportunity to invest equity in significant infrastructure projects (and to negotiate the terms of such investments).