Baghdad

The economic potential of Iraq and its capital Baghdad are enormous. Investment is increasing in new sectors, including communications, technology and infrastructure, complementing the well-established oil & gas sector.

We opened our first office in Iraq in Baghdad 2005, making us one of only a handful of law firms with a physical presence in the country. Our highly qualified lawyers, including litigators who have audiences before the courts, live and work in Baghdad and Erbil.

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. Our role was to represent the client before the courts, coordination 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
• Several leading international oil companies (IOCs) on oil and gas related operational issues of many diverse kinds; including cost recovery; Iraqization, resolution of commercial disputes and many other matters.