Client Work
Mandates on record,
told without the marketing.
A selection of client files, anonymised at their request: what the business needed, where the difficulty sat, how the structure was resolved and what it produced. Sectors range from consultancy and commodity trading to technology and family holdings.
Banking · United Arab Emirates
Incorporation · Dubai
Company formations,as they wereactually run.
No two establishments follow the same route, and none should.
What follows is a record of six representative mandates — a consultancy relocating from London, a European trader entering the Gulf, a software company placing its regional headquarters, an investor opening three venues, a regulated healthcare practice and a family office consolidating its interests. Each began with a different objective and a different constraint, so each was structured differently. Details are composite and anonymised out of respect for the clients concerned; the reasoning, sequence and outcomes are exactly as they occurred.
A London practice, resident in Dubai
A founding partner moved a fifteen-year advisory practice to the Emirates without interrupting a single retainer.
Objective
The principal intended to advise UK and Gulf clients from Dubai, invoice in three currencies and hold residency for a family of four, while keeping existing British contracts undisturbed.
Challenge
The activity had to cover strategy work, training and market research under one licence; earlier advice had proposed three. Two clients required a mainland counterparty, and the family needed schooling in place for September.
Approach
We read the client list before the licence. Consulting scope was consolidated under a single professional activity, the mainland route selected for counterparty comfort, and the residency calendar reversed from the school term rather than the filing date.
Formation
Mainland professional licence, sole establishment converted to LLC on the second partner's arrival, with a Category A corporate bank account and tax registration from the outset.
Outcome
Trading within eleven working days. First invoice raised before residency completed; no contract renegotiated. The September term was met with a fortnight in hand.
Standing counsel — Bond files the corporate tax return, maintains the bookkeeping and reviews the activity annually as the practice adds associates.
- 01
Consultation
Client list and contracts read
- 02
Structure
Single professional activity
- 03
Licence
Issued day eleven
- 04
Residency
Four visas, term met
Register of Mandates
Select an account to read it in full
The next record begins with your intentions.
Describe what you intend to build in the Emirates and we will set out the structure we would recommend, the licence it requires, the calendar it follows and the cost in full — in writing, before anything is committed.
Written thinking on licensing, tax and residency follows.
Insights & Resources