About

Oman Insurance Company (OIC), majority owned by Mashreq Bank, has recently won the award of Commercial Lines Insurer of the Year and the Most Innovative Insurer- Pension Product by the MENA Insurance Awards. These awards have recognised the excellent organisational structure of OIC, a quality the legal team has sought to match. Over the last two years the legal team, headed by Anwar El Khatib, has reorganised to help clarity in roles and responsibilities while limiting the need for external counsel. The team plays a constant role in the strategic direction of the company and is, according to one nominator, ‘fully commercially oriented [and] embedded within the business’. The department is praised both internally and externally for its end-to-end management of contract drafting and innovative periodic monitoring of the performance of the transaction at hand. It has also reigned several achievements in litigation and in some cases working with external law firms that have praised the team’s in-house abilities. The legal team at OIC is constantly proving itself as it overcomes the challenge to preserve the organisation’s interests while accommodating the business strategies.