Results for the Islamic Finance
news 2013 Law Poll are now out, and the winners from each sector, from asset and fund management to tax and Takaful, include a diverse mix of law firms from all over the globe. This year’s Best Overall Law Firm winner goes to Allen & Overy, based on the firm’s involvement in a number of industry-moving transactions including the restructuring of Global Investment House, Dubai Islamic Bank’s Tier-1 Sukuk and Emirates’ recent Sukuk.
Dubai-based law firm Al Tamimi & Company was a surprise winner in the Best Law Firm for Litigation and Dispute Resolution after trumping last year’s winners, goliaths King & Spalding; as the law firm expands its reach across the Middle East and is touted as the most sophisticated law firm in terms of Islamic dispute resolution and regional banking litigation and enforcement. According to Craig Nethercott, a partner at Latham & Watkins (this year’s winner for Best Law Firm for Project & Infrastructure Finance), the Middle East is seeing more interest from export credit agencies to structure transactions in a Shariah compliant manner, and a significant increase in infrastructure investment.
The results from this year’s Law Poll are covered in full in this week’s cover story, which also includes sound bites from the winners from selected categories. Our newsletter also features reports on Bangladesh, Bahrain, India and the Islamic ETF sector; as well as in-house reports on opportunities in the Halal sector between China and Malaysia, and the newly-launched Muscat Securities Market Index, among others.
Again, we would like to express our heartiest congratulations to this year’s IFN Law Poll winners, as voted by the readers of Islamic Finance
news, and we look forward to seeing more diverse names and faces in next year’s lineup.