Enforcement of Foreign Judgments & Awards

Yes — through a recognition and enforcement procedure before the UAE courts. The court does not retry the merits: it examines the jurisdiction of the issuing court, proper service and notice, finality of the judgment, and the absence of conflict with UAE public order or existing UAE judgments. Where a bilateral or multilateral treaty applies, the route is more predictable; in treaty-free situations reciprocity becomes a practical risk point that should be assessed before filing.

The core package: a certified copy of the judgment, evidence of finality (no pending appeal), proof of proper service on the defendant, a complete legalization chain for the country of origin, and a certified Arabic translation. A defect in any element — an incomplete legalization chain or an uncertified translation — is among the most common reasons enforcement stalls, so the package is worth preparing properly before filing rather than fixing mid-process.

In appropriate cases, yes. UAE courts can grant precautionary attachment over bank accounts, real estate and other assets where there is a credible risk of dissipation, and such applications can move quickly. Timing matters more than almost anything else: once assets move to related parties or other jurisdictions, recovery becomes a separate and more expensive exercise. We assess attachment options at the same time as the recognition route, not after it.

It depends on whether the application is contested, the quality of the document package and the route chosen. As a general pattern, uncontested applications with a clean package move significantly faster than contested ones, where the debtor raises jurisdiction, service or public-order objections. A realistic timeline can usually be estimated after reviewing the judgment and the debtor's likely defence position — which is why we start there rather than with filings.

Yes. The UAE is a party to the New York Convention, so foreign arbitral awards follow the convention framework: the grounds for refusing enforcement are narrow and procedural in nature. Court judgments rely on treaties or reciprocity instead. In practice this often makes a well-drafted arbitral award the more predictable instrument to enforce in the UAE — though each route has its own procedural discipline and its own defence surface.

'No visible assets' and 'no assets' are different things. Asset positions in the UAE are often held through companies, family members or related structures. We run an asset-tracing exercise across the realistic categories — bank accounts, real estate, vehicles, company interests — and assess whether transfers to related parties can be challenged. Sometimes the honest answer is that enforcement is not commercially viable; establishing that early, before costs are sunk, is itself valuable.