Strengthening our client service offering across MENA with additional funds formation capability

Today we announce that we have hired Fawaz Elmalki, a leading funds formation lawyer in the Middle East, to join our Dubai Corporate team as a consultant Senior Counsel. 

Taylor Wessing is committed to further strengthening our client offering in Dubai and across MENA, including by developing a corporate capability that builds on the firm's strengths as a European market-leader in high-profile M&A, private equity, and venture capital work in the technology sector. Since recruiting high-profile TMC sector specialist Abdullah Mutawi to lead its corporate practice in March 2022, it has been clear that there is increasing demand for funds formation capability. The addition of Fawaz Elmalki to the team strengthens the firm's service offering to our clients and aligns it to our international sector-focused strategy.  

Abdullah Mutawi, Head of Taylor Wessing's Corporate practice in MENA said: "Fawaz's expertise perfectly complements and strengthens our existing offering especially to VC and PE clients, bolstering our ability to support fund structuring and formation and downstream transactional work. He is an outstanding lawyer and we are delighted to welcome him to the firm."

On his appointment, Fawaz Elmalki said: "There is a full pipeline of funds formation work arising from existing client relationships, the emergence of new investment strategies arising in the current market environment, and a significant inflow of asset managers from around the world looking to raise capital in the MENA region. Taylor Wessing's on-the-ground presence in Dubai offers an ideal platform from which to meet clients' needs across the region."

This is the second significant investment in Taylor Wessing's MENA team in the space of a few months, following the appointment of Munir Suboh as a partner in July 2023, to establish new IP, media, commercial and data privacy capability. The IP offering that Munir brings is highly synergistic to the VC and technology transactions capability in the MENA region where the firm is now a market leader.