The DIFC Courts - A "Conduit Jurisdiction" No More?

As we predicted in our Annual Seminar on Recent Developments in the UAE Dispute Resolution Landscape, back in November 2016, the use of the DIFC Courts as a "conduit jurisdiction" has been called into question.

There has been much discussion in the Dubai legal community and beyond about the use of the DIFC Courts as a conduit jurisdiction for the recognition and enforcement of both foreign and domestic arbitral awards following the line of decisions in Banyan Tree v Meydan Group LLC, DNB Bank ASA v Gulf Eyadah, and the Oger Dubai LLC v Daman Real Estate Capital Partners Ltd. These and other cases led to the formation of the Judicial Tribunal created by Decree No.19/2016 ("Decree"). The Judicial Tribunal's purpose is to review and resolve "conflicts of jurisdiction" between the DIFC Courts and the Dubai Courts. The JT is made up of four Judges from the Dubai onshore Courts and three from the DIFC Courts.