About

The Gemstone Real Estate Development legal team is based around a core of highly skilled lawyers. As well as chief legal officer Aasma Khan, whose importance to the group is borne out by the broad portfolio of responsibilities she takes on for it (she also looks after Tameer Holding Investment and its related companies), the Gemstone legal function includes a number of other key operators who all boast vast experience with the company and impressive skillsets. Charlotte Gambling, a senior legal counsel who has five years’ experience with group companies, came in for high praise from Khan: ‘Her legal drafting acumen allows her to think through commercial issues and translate them into solid drafting with risk management considered. She can draft from scratch (without a template), a solid contract. Not many lawyers can do that anymore’. Similarly, senior legal counsel of six years’ tenure Ayman Harran brings specific talents to the team which Khan remarks upon: ‘Harran is my go-to resource for creative legal advice and has been able to write persuasive cassation judgments in numerous cases, winning reversals and reconsiderations.

Furthermore, Harran’s procedural dexterity and research acumen afford us highly accurate assessments of the position of the law in the UAE, Qatar and Saudi [Arabia]’. Senior corporate paralegal Khizer Sakia’s story in the team is interesting, too. Beginning as a temporary administrative assistant, over the course of a number of years he was promoted multiple times and took on legal training in order to allow him to take on his current role. He is described by his team lead as having ‘specialisation in running liquidations, preparing board presentations, drafting legal memos laying out our cases’ strengths and weaknesses, briefing law firms and negotiating fees’.

The individual skills of the members of the team have combined to make it highly effective in supporting the company’s goals. Khan mentions that the team has conducted a major restructuring across the GCC for the entire group over the past two years, all while gearing up to take even more work in-house to increase efficiency. Building on the highly impressive core of lawyers already at the company, the Gemstone Real Estate Developments legal team has high hopes for the future.