The need for high quality Arabic support will only increase. Below are our thoughts on why this is the case.

Increased globalisation and cross-border investment in the future involving the Arab region or Arab parties will lead to even more cross-border transactions and disputes. See for example Saudi Arabia’s ambitions to build a new city called Neom www.neom.com (that will probably rival the existing free zones such as the Dubai International Financial Centre, the Abu Dhabi Global Markets and the Qatar Financial Centre). It is not clear yet whether Neom will use Arabic exclusively for its Courts and regulations or if all legal documents and proceedings will be bilingual – watch this space!     

English and Arabic together will continue to feature heavily in legislation, contracts, corporate documents and proceedings across the Middle East and North Africa region (and in legal matters elsewhere in the world involving issues relating to the Arab world – for example, in international arbitration seated outside the Arab region and proceedings before the commercial courts in key jurisdictions).