UAE Update - December 2021

Further to the recent Court decision reported last month, work now continues in the UAE to implement the realisation process.  This is a Court supervised process and requires the Court and its appointed specialists to agree the range of assets that can be liquidated for the purpose of the award. This does mean another round of court actions, but this is expected to conclude by the end of Q1 2022 though timing is uncertain as always with the court process. 

It is also the case that if there have been any attempts by the Defendants to obstruct this process or deliberate attempts to avoid obligations, then the Court can increase the amount awarded. 

Once this process has been concluded there is a further process to determine the fair allocation of costs of recovery. We are informed that the Court experts are currently compiling their reports for this purpose, and it seems likely that they will be in a position to present these to the Court in the New Year.

Separate to this process, work is going on to recover historic rental income for the Citadel property and to ensure collection of rental income going forwards from the office and car parks in this building.  The early advice from the property agents in the UAE is to normalise and increase the yield from this asset before a sale is considered to maximise revenues from this property.  It is expected that both the value attributed to the office and the car parks can be improved in this way.