Towards the end of this year, lawyers in the GCC are expected to be busy with more restructuring work, project financing deals and a healthy pipeline in terms of Islamic finance transactions. In Asia, Malaysian lawyers are looking forward to more Islamic finance work “across the board”, according to Loh Mei Mei, a partner at law firm ZUL RAFIQUE & partners, and in Indonesia, managing partner of AZP Legal, Ary Zulfikar, is confident of the Shariah compliant mutual funds industry kicking off.
Similar to all other industries, the legal sector has also been affected by the declining global economy as clients continue to seek the best deals for the best price; resulting in the onset of a price war among law firms. On the Islamic finance side, the legal industry still continues to wrestle with a shortage of talent, but the increasing number of law firms offering Islamic finance services is encouraging, nonetheless.
This year also saw a couple of high-profile moves within the Islamic finance legal industry, with Neil Miller, previously global head of Islamic finance at KPMG returning to the law and heading up Linklaters’ Islamic finance practice, and Ayman Khaleq, managing partner of Vinson & Elkins’ Middle East practice leaving the firm to join another American legal powerhouse, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius which recently opened an office in Dubai.
In this issue of Islamic Finance
news Supplements, we detail the winners of our Islamic Finance
news Law Poll which was decided upon by you, our readers. Magic circle firm Allen & Overy emerged as the biggest winner, gaining a lead in four out of the 16 contested categories; while American law firms such as Vinson & Elkins and King & Spalding also emerged winners in the poll.
With that, dear readers, we hope you enjoy reading the Law issue of Islamic Finance
news Supplements.