This session offers professionals an overview of the key amendments to the DIFC Trust Law and DIFC Foundations Law, as amended by DIFC Laws Amendment Laws No.1 and No.3 of 2024. The amendments seek to enhance the legal framework for managing substantial wealth in the region through innovating to address the challenges that have been met following the growing use of trusts and foundations within the DIFC.
Learning Outcomes
The DIFC amendments to the Trust Law and Foundations Law will be reviewed as follows:
1. Understanding the DIFC Law Amendments:
· Learn about the expanded scope and flexibility of the provisions for converting companies and allowing foundations to serve both charitable and non-charitable purposes.
· Study the enhanced firewall provisions that protect DIFC trusts and foundations from foreign legal actions and judgments.
2. Navigating Creditor Claims:
· Understand the rights of creditors under the current and amended DIFC Law, including the process for challenging transfers intended to defraud creditors.
· Examine the higher burden of proof required for creditors to void property transfers under the amended law.
3. Enforcement of Foreign Judgments and Duress Provisions:
· Learn about the amendments that reinforce the supremacy of DIFC law over foreign judgments and provide protection against foreign court orders.
· Understand the implications of these amendments for the enforcement of foreign judgments and the limitations placed on foreign authorities' actions against DIFC.
4. Division and Amalgamation of Foundations:
· Study the amendments facilitating the division and amalgamation of foundations to resolve disputes and improve governance.
· Learn about the Court's supervisory role in processes and the statutory limitations imposed on actions challenging the establishment or property dispositions.
5. Compliance with Transparency and Anti-Money Laundering Regulations:
· Understand the role of corporate service providers (CSPs) in ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) regulations.
· Learn about the Registrar's reliance on CSP certifications and the consequences for CSPs failing to meet their regulatory obligations.
6. Balancing Privacy and Transparency:
· Examine how the DIFC amendments attempt to balance privacy with the need for transparency, including the introduction of private registers for family arrangements.
Understand the impact of these measures on the attractiveness and credibility of DIFC in global wealth management.
Speakers
David Russell KC
Barrister - Outer Temple Chambers
David Russell KC commenced legal practice in 1974. He is admitted to practise in Australia, England and Wales (Lincoln’s Inn), the Courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre, New York (as a Legal Consultant), New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
He currently practises in Dubai, London, and Abu Dhabi (Outer Temple Chambers), Sydney (Ground Floor Wentworth Chambers) and Brisbane (Sir Harry Gibbs Chambers). He has acted for Commonwealth and State Governments as well as individuals and corporations. David was President of the Taxation Institute of Australia from 1993 to 1995, and of the Asia Oceania Tax Consultants’ Association from 1996 to 2000.
He has lectured at the University of Sydney for the Master of Taxation course, the University of Queensland for the Master of Laws course and served as an Adjunct Professor of the University of Queensland. He is the co-editor of the Oxford University Press Journal Trusts & Trustees.
He was the Inaugural Chairman of the STEP International Client Special Interest Group, was Deputy Chair and a director of STEP and a member of its World Wide Council and various Committees, and is a co-chair of the United Arab Emirates Chapter of the International Section of the New York State Bar Association, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Section, an Academician of The International Academy of Estate and Trust Law, a Member of the Middle East and North Africa Branch Committee of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (UK), a member of the Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers, a Freeman of the City of London and an Honorary Member of the Taxation Institute of Hong Kong. In 2016 he chaired the DIFC’s Wealth Management Review Working Group.
David is listed in the Taxation Category in the Australian Financial Review/Best Lawyers review of the Australian Legal Profession in 2008 and all later years and in 2014 was the Tax Institute’s Chartered Tax Adviser of the Year. In 2010 he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun (with Gold Rays and Neck Ribbon) for his services to Australia-Japan relations. In 2012 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for, among other things, “service … to taxation law and legal education.” Since 2016, he has been recognised by Legal Week and The American Lawyer as part of the Private Client Global Elite.
Outside the law, he maintains his interest in his family’s rural business, Russell Pastoral Company, and its flagship property, Jimbour.
Shabana Saleem
Barrister - Outer Temple Chambers
Shabana is a member of the Outer Temple Chambers International Team specialising in private wealth, specifically all family matters. She is based in the Middle East and joined Outer Temple Chambers after nearly ten years in private practice at leading Legal 500 firms in London.
Expertise:
- Private Wealth and Family Matters:
Shabana has represented a range of clients from individuals to trusts, foundations and family businesses on wealth preservation and protection. She advises on contentious and non-contentious wealth management matters.
Shabana recently spoke at a seminar alongside the DIFC to private wealth practitioners on the private wealth and family business opportunities in the MEASA region, the evolving Middle East locations and the legal and regulatory landscape for this practice.
She advises in all areas of family law. Her family practice includes drafting wealth protection agreements (Islamic marriage contracts, pre and post nuptial agreements). She also advises on contentious and non-contentious divorce, finance and children issues.
She has a particular understanding of the interplay of English law and Shari’a issues. Her co-authored paper The Legal Treatment of Islamic Marriage Ceremonies (Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, 2018) was cited in the Court of Appeal decision of Akhter v Khan [2020] EWCA Civ 122 dealing with the validity of an Islamic marriage ceremony under English law.
- Mediation and Arbitration:
Shabana is a specialist in mediating and arbitrating family matters. She works closely with clients to provide bespoke processes that support the amicable resolution of disputes.
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