Iraq

Iraq is a country of opportunity. Investment is increasing in new sectors, including communications, technology and infrastructure, complementing the well-established oil & gas sector.

Al Tamimi & Company offers clients a combination of local knowledge and international expertise to ensure they make the most of these opportunities.

With an expert team who live and work in Iraq and offices in Baghdad, Basra and Erbil, our multi-lingual lawyers are fluent in Arabic, English and Chinese, and many are dual qualified in the UK and Iraq. Our focus is on providing ethically reliable advice at an international standard.

Compared to other law firms that may not have staff on the ground in Iraq, we have excellent local contacts and an unrivalled understanding of the nuances of the national and regional governments. We can also draw on the expertise of the wider Al Tamimi & Company network of 290 lawyers across the MENA region.

Our ambition for Iraq and our clients in the region matches the Iraq Vision 2030, which sees a move towards an increasingly diverse economy.

Our Iraqi team offers clients a complete service, including corporate and commercial advice, litigation and taxation expertise. 

We have acted for hundreds of clients in Iraq, including international corporations, Iraqi-owned companies, financial institutions and investors across several sectors, including oil & gas, communications, energy and infrastructure. 

We routinely handle many of the most significant cross-border transactions that Iraq has seen. 

Recent projects include. 

• Advised a major client in connection with Korean merger and implications for a mega project.
• Represent a coalition consisting of four Korean companies which have a project in Iraq to build the largest refinery in the Middle East in a dispute that occurred with one of the contractors with this coalition, after which a number of lawsuits were files, all of which were results in favor of the client. One of our requests is a counter-claim lawsuit to request the execution of the arbitration decision and its recognition in accordance with the New York Arbitration Agreement after the case has been suspended for a while until the arbitration decision is issued. The arbitration award was in favor of the client issued by the ICC. We represented the client before the courts, coordinated with the arbitrators and client representatives before the ICC, including submitting arguments and legal opinions to them.
• Represent three Italian companies in three lawsuits filed against them by one of the Iraqi ministries to claim the dues amounting to millions of Dollars. We were able to obtain a decision from the court to suspend the lawsuits until the arbitration decision is issued. In fact, the client proceeded with the arbitration procedures before the competent arbitration body and the decision was issued in favor of the clients. As a result, and the procedures and defenses that we submitted, we achieved a good result for the benefit of the client.
• Provide an international organisation Legal opinion regarding the position of Iraqi law on providing a service of guarantee on the obligations of a borrower towards its lender, loan agreement with the Iraqi Government, Memorandum of Understanding and Legal Advice Consultation on implementation of the Iraqi 2019 Budget Law regarding provisions for borrowing from the client.
• Leading Chinese national oil company (NOC) on oil field development in Iraq, including operational matters such as registration, subcontracting, public procurement, labour law, environmental, managing requests by official authorities and many other issues.
• A major Japanese investor on the development and resolution of matters in relation to a refinery project in southern Iraq
• Represent foreign companies in arbitration proceedings conducted by a panel of arbitrators appointed by the Iraqi court. Arbitration procedures were conducted in accordance with the terms and provisions of the Civil Procedure Law.