Lawyer Monthly - September 2024

regulations, and cultural nuances become crucial. These cases often involve complex negotiations with multiple stakeholders, including foreign governments, creditors, advisors and employees. While assisting our clients with debt restructuring requires comprehensive knowledge of insolvency laws, creditor negotiations, and financial restructuring strategies. Some clients continuously teach us to come up with the most unconventional legal solutions and push our legal horizons to find legal workarounds for some of the most complex issues, to cater for the evolving business landscapes and industry-specific challenges they face. This ongoing learning process enriches our expertise and enhances our ability to provide bespoke tailored and effective legal solutions that align with our clients’ strategic goals. During this process were there any challenges or surprises that arose which made you have to change your tactics or overcome to be able to move forward? This transaction was one of the most – if not the most ¬– challenging deal we have worked on. The structure of the transaction has changed numerous times in the process, and so did the contemplated listing venue and naturally the jurisdiction and sets of law involved, which presented markets affected. Further, we offer a unique blend of legal knowledge, industry knowledge, and strategic thinking that enabled us to adopt a strategic approach, anticipating risks and implementing robust mitigation actions, ensuring we could adapt to the dynamic nature of the transaction. This combination of legal expertise, strategic insight, proactive approach and regional presence, combined with a track record of successful listings, positioned us as a trusted partner to Agility capable of delivering exceptional results and leading this transaction to successful fruition. With your wealth of experience in areas such as public IPOs, joint ventures and more how does each case take a different level of skill and what does each client teach you during the process? Each case requires a tailored approach due to the distinct legal, regulatory, and business contexts involved. For example, public IPOs demand in-depth knowledge of securities regulations and investor relations, while joint ventures require a deep understanding of partnership dynamics and contractual nuances. When dealing with cross-border restructurings, our skills in international law, local transaction and the relationship with key government stakeholders Tarek Yehya – Partner (Capital Markets) – led the team working on the transaction and advised on all capital markets and corporate aspects Mohammed Abdulwahed – Senior Counsel (Disputes) – advised on potential liability and risks pertaining to the transaction and prepared defense’s and contingency plans Lama Abou Ali – Counsel (Capital Markets) – led key streams including corporate governance and approvals, regulatory compliance and approvals, drafting of the transaction documents, advising on risks and mitigation actions pertaining to the transaction and assisting the client with the implementation steps Omar Youssef – Counsel (Disputes) – advised on potential liability and risks pertaining to the transaction and prepared defense’s and contingency plans How do you think your law firm was the best to handle this project and what unique skills does your team offer their clients? Our law firm was uniquely qualified to handle this transaction for a number of reasons and factors: firstly, our extensive experience in handling complex cross-border transactions involving intricate local regulatory requirements, particularly in the sectors relevant to this transaction; secondly, the team who worked on this transaction is composed of experts who specialise in local and regional capital markets, restructuring, regulatory compliance, corporate, and other sophisticated fields, add to that our longstanding familiarity with Agility’s business, having been our first and oldest client. The trust Agility places in us, coupled with our presence in both Kuwait and the UAE and the work alongside the experienced team of White&Case who brought in their skills, knowledge and know-how, enabled us to manage the transaction effectively in the two key 38 LAWYER MONTHLY SEPTEMBER 2024

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