Sarah El Serafy

Biography

Sarah has extensive experience advising banking clients on various legal and regulatory matters.  She also has expertise in banking litigation, restructuring and insolvency, debt capital markets, structured products, banks’ mergers and acquisitions, and general banking and finance. Sarah has assisted banking clients in complex banks’ mergers, bond offerings, leveraged buyouts, syndicated finance transactions, securitisation of loans portfolios, investment business start-ups, introducing structured products to the local market, insurance and re-insurance, debt recovery, insolvency and other various matters.

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Recent Experience

Banking litigation experience

• • Advising an investor group on a leveraged buyout of a debt secured by mortgage and the currently ongoing complex litigation issues around the transaction.
  • Advising a number of local and foreign lenders on the debt claims in the insolvency of NMC Group in the UAE as well assisting with submission of claims.
  • Currently advising on various and acting for various regional (GCC) and Indian banks in connection with the enforcement and recovery under bilateral and syndicated term loans and structured trade finance facilities.
  • Advising on enforcement of security documentation by way of foreclosure and summary proceedings (movable asset security, share security, real estate mortgages, etc).
  • Advising and acting for foreign and local lenders in relation to debt recovery claims against UAE Exchange LLC in view of the UAE Central Bank investigations.
  • Acting for a group of local banks in a syndicated facility to a large hospital group in the current debt recovery process and advising on the complexity of the process as well as taking enforcement steps against security (asset pledge, assignment of proceeds and guarantees).
  • Acing for a group of local lenders in a syndicated transaction in recovering a debt from a local business group with assets located in various emirates and assisting with the perfection of unperfected security to enable enforcement.

Additional Experience

• • • Advising the UAE Central Bank on Consumer Protection Regulation.
    • Advising EFG Hermes on various complex and multi-jurisdictional bridge facilities to prominent borrowers in the UAE.
    • Advising Bank of Baroda in relation to facilities to a developer in the UAE against various security.
    • Advising an investment firm on the acquisition of UAE branches of a foreign bank.
    • Advising Barwa Bank Q.S.C. in relation to a USD 2bn trust certificate issuance programme established and issued by BBG Sukuk Ltd.
    • Advising the dealers in connection with the Qatar Islamic Bank Q.S.C. USD 1.5bn trust certificate issuance programme established by QIB Sukuk Ltd. (and QAR 2bn Additional Tier 1 capital instruments)
    • Advising Qatar National Bank on the acquisition of a Turkish bank.
    • Advising HSBC on the domiciliation of HSBC Jersey to the DIFC.
    • Advising Standard Chartered Bank on a loan to Ahli Bank Qatar against Government securities.
    • Advising Qatar Central Bank on Insurance and Re-Insurance Regulations.