PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal Middle East LLP

PwC Legal Middle East offers premium legal advice across the region uniquely integrated with PwC’s tax, deals advisory, assurance and consulting services. This allows PwC to advise its clients across a range of a professional services without the need for our clients to engage multiple advisory teams for the same project. PwC Legal provides standalone legal services or as part of a joined up offering alongside other PwC services.

PwC Legal has a team of over 55 legal specialists based on the ground in the Middle East and, globally, over 5,000 legal specialists in over 100 jurisdictions. We are the largest legal services network in the world by geographical coverage.

Our sector approach enables us to apply detailed industry knowledge and to understand the important issues.  We have experts working across Energy, Financial Services (including FinTech and Emerging Technologies), Retail, Digital, Travel and Industrials sectors.

Whatever the commercial project, PwC have the right people with the right expertise to solve our clients’ business needs.

Our range of specialisms:

M&A

Our M&A lawyers have a strong track record of undertaking significant and complex M&A acquisitions and disposals across the GCC region. We support our clients with the full range of M&A transaction services, including: (i) assessing and structuring opportunities, (ii) preliminary documents, (iii) buyside and sellside legal due diligence, (iv) sale and purchase agreements, (v) disclosure, (vi) shareholders’ agreements and (vii) signing and closing and post-closing matters.

Our approach involves:

• Partner-led services – senior lawyers lead the provision of our services and are ‘hands-on’ from the start to the end of a transaction to ensure seamless execution
• Integrated approach – a unique integrated approach across various PwC’s transactional practices
• Considerable expertise in M&A mandates – extensive experience of protecting the interests of buyers, sellers investors and management teams
• Flexible and innovative approach to fees – competitive hourly rates coupled with the ability to provide flexible arrangements (including capped fees and abort & success arrangements)
• A practical approach to getting the deal done – sensible, constructive engagement with other advisers from a proactive and highly efficient deal team

Business Restructuring

Our international business restructuring team provides support to clients globally in connection with the following key areas:

• Post-deal integrations
• Pre-deal separation and carve outs
• Pre and post-IPO reorganisations
• Intra-group financing and refinancing
• Cash repatriation
• Alignment of legal structure to business divisions
• Legal entity and business rationalisation and simplification

We advise private and family businesses, particularly in relation to succession planning and preserving wealth for future generations. Our restructuring practice provides advice on different structures, including the use of trusts and foundations.

Corporate and Commercial

We provide a range of corporate and commercial services to our clients – including joint ventures, structuring, commercial contracts advisory, intellectual property and legal healthchecks. We provide commercial legal solutions to business challenges.

Entity Management and Compliance

We assist large multinational clients and local enterprises to better manage ongoing compliance requirements for their legal entities. The team successfully manages groups of entities in multiple territories for global and regional clients. The team makes use of innovative technology to provide instant access to clients of their group companies and structures. We act as a single global point of contact and project manage services provided across our global network.

We also advise in relation to market entry options offering advice for the entire lifecycle of an entity in the region – from set up (including a structuring analysis as to preferred mainland, free zone and offshore options), ongoing management (including filing requirements, maintenance of corporate records, domiciliation services and corporate changes) to closure and liquidations.

Corporate Governance

We are one of the few Legal teams in the market that has a dedicated Corporate Governance function. We advise on and implement corporate governance frameworks that meet global and industry best practice. We review the effectiveness of governance functions and provide board and committee support. We advise on and train board secretaries and directors on their governance role and legal obligations.

Immigration and Employment

Our immigration and employment practice enables us to work seamlessly to deliver end-to-end employment law instruction and immigration support and we handle the employment law and immigration services for some of the largest companies in the world. We assist with business and resident visas and work permits, immigration compliance for business travelers, legalisation of documents, employment law advice, drafting of contracts and labour law healthchecks.

Our employment offering is unique in that it functions with our immigration practice to offer a seamless, holistic and integrated service offering – this USP is important in that it sets us apart from other employment practices in the region that do not offer combined employment law and immigration services.

Data Privacy and GDPR

Our GDPR readiness assessment sets out the maturity of an organisation against the GDPR. Our unique Vision Workshop brings key stakeholders together, to build a holistic Vision and fit-for-purpose strategy. We perform Gap Analysis exercises (policy, controls, technology, scenarios) to identify at a granular level, the incremental work that needs to be done to achieve full ongoing compliance.

We also advise in relation to drafting and implementing new data protection laws and setting up the legal framework across the GCC together with compliance support for local organisations with such laws.

Government Regulatory

The government regulatory practice provides a wide spectrum of legal services to government and semi-governmental entities, regulators and legislatures. We advise on the legalities, structures and implementation of government projects and initiatives. We are active in leading regulatory reform and development through benchmarking and legislative and regulatory drafting implementation (in both Arabic and English).

Real Estate

We provide full-service capability covering real estate transactions and restructuring projects and have significant experience of complex transactions requiring an integrated service from a combination of specialists, including legal, assurance, tax, financial and advisory experts. We advise public and private companies, investors, funds, hotel owners and operators, retailers and developers across a range of real estate projects.

FinTech, Emerging Technology & Blockchain
Our lawyers advise on FinTech, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain as well as conventional financial services and banking regulations.

The team advise clients on the opportunities, legal/regulatory challenges of implementing blockchain and digital solutions and how to attain their strategic goals in this space. The team assist companies at every stage of their lifecycle, from early stage-startups raising funds to Fortune 100 companies developing and implementing blockchain-based solutions.