Family Business

In the Middle East, family controlled businesses predominate in many of the region’s key industries - both in terms of the size and range of their investments and the numbers of personnel they employ.

Our Family Business Practice is the market leader in the GCC region and is dedicated to building and engineering the legal structures and binding understandings necessary to insulate family controlled businesses and assets from external threats and internal family dialogue debates.

Shahrani Law Firm is dedicated to ensure a clear pathway to the future stewardship of family assets and has unparalleled local and regional expertise at building those legal structures for assets and business holdings throughout the GCC and MENA. Those structures stabilise asset ownership and align the assets with any arrangements for family stewardship.

We work with leading Sharia scholars to design family structures and understandings which are fully compliant with Sharia. We can achieve this outcome without exposing business structures and family understandings to interference or intervention from secular officials, allowing a seamless transition from the original family stewardship to the next generation.

Our Expertise

Our clients benefit from the insight of local and international experts who apply family business focused experience and are supported by the full range of legal services we offer at Shahrani Law Firm. We work closely with other specialists to offer traditional corporate restructuring, succession planning, property and trust advice and provide the following additional specialised services:

• Family Constitutions.
• Traditional corporate restructuring.
• Limited liability structures tailored to manage business risks.
• Family corporate governance systems.
• Management and resolution of inter-generational conflicts.
• Establishment and management of family offices support.

We have experience in the following:

• Legal Structures protecting against and managing legal risks and exposures associated with family business investments.
• Tailor made legal entities and arrangements which eliminate business disruption at times of family transition (e.g. retirement, incapacity or death).
• Binding family constitutions which manage and channel dialogues and debates, and pave the way for a clear and orderly transition to future stewardship.
• Bespoke governance policies based on specific family and business circumstances including:
  • Educational developments of younger family members, best practice distribution of Zakat and general philanthropic giving.
  • Buy back mechanisms for family members desiring liquidity.
  • Rules, policies and structures for family venture funds.