About

The legal team of 21 lawyers and eight support staff at Al Futtaim Group, a large real-estate conglomerate based in Dubai, is headed by group general counsel Fadi Hammadeh. The team is at the forefront in applying digital legal technology to improve capability and efficiency in the communication and delivery of advice to the firm. It has leveraged digital communications to help manage employee communications from intranets and internal social media, and has also invested in its internal corporate communications capabilities in order to build stronger relationships as part of corporate governance.

Specifically the legal team has embraced new technology such as the BluePrint Oneworld software application for both data protection and archiving of corporate documents. The team has also created a subscription-based know-how database to promote consistency across its templates whilst reducing the demand and cost of outsourcing. Other initiatives of the team include making advances in compliance and training. To comply with new VAT regulations and to facilitate VAT reporting, the team has performed a restructuring of the trading and engineering companies within the Al Futtaim conglomerate. In order to have better control and to protect the interests of the shareholders, the legal team has assisted in restructuring of the holding companies. It has also boosted the firm’s existing finance capabilities through legal training programmes. Some resent major deals and transactions they have worked on include the acquisition of the Marks & Spencer’s retail business in Hong Kong and Macau and the acquisition of Grace One in Malaysia.

The team has incorporated a company in Pakistan in order to facilitate a joint venture project with Renault for the assembly of automobile units and accessories, and the incorporation of several companies in the UAE and Saudi Arabia in order to facilitate the commercial operation of the Group’s retail department stores. Changes to the financial market in the UAE including the implementation of VAT, KYC and financial regulation, as well as the increased availability of favourable fixed fee arrangements with external counsels has led to major changes in Al Futtaim’s business. Victoria Price, office manager in Hammadeh’s group general counsel office, says this highlights that ‘customers, competition, the economy, political and social conditions have all had a significant influence on the Group’s current business operations and management continually monitors and quickly adapts to external pressures’.