Michael Kortbawi

Michael is Senior Partner at BSA LAW in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), focusing on the Corporate and Mergers & Acquisitions practice.

He specialises in corporate and regulatory advice across corporate and finance law, including cross-border financing, real estate finance and transactions involving financial institutions and insurance companies. He also heads the firm’s bankruptcy, insolvency and restructuring practice.

He has over two decades of experience practising in the UAE and the wider Middle East region. Michael has led several large financial restructuring matters, including one of the largest restructuring exercises in the Middle East.

He also oversees the firm’s banking and finance function, managing major corporate restructuring and banking transactions. Michael’s clients include multinational corporations, leading banks and regional investors such as Halliburton, ADCB, Emirates NBD, Mashreq Bank, CIMIC Group, JBF Industries and Banijay Group.

Michael and his team are recognised for providing valuable, practical knowledge of the law delivered to international standards.

SERVICES

• Commercial
• Corporate & M&A
• Private Equity And Funds
• Restructuring, Bankruptcy & Insolvency

INDUSTRY

• Insurance
• Leisure & Hospitality
• Life Sciences & Healthcare
• Real Estate
• Retail & Luxury Brands

• Representing industry leader in PET manufacturing, in a debt-for equity swap; one of the largest restructuring exercises the UAE has witnessed.
• Advising Dr BR. Shetty, founder of NMC Healthcare, Finablr Payments and Foreign Exchange Technology Platform, and Neopharma on restructuring his group of companies in the UAE.
• Advising a UAE bank-led syndicate of lenders on the UAE, DIFC and ADGM law perspective in an AED 5 billion debt restructuring of a privately owned regional business conglomerate
• Advising Mashreq Bank on their AED 135 million claim against KBBO Group
• Advising an Australian, publicly listed multinational contractor on potential insolvency, restructuring and exiting the region.
• Advising syndicate of banks on enforcement action and strategy involving securities and collateral (property mortgage, vessel mortgage, assignment of rights, assignments of receivables etc.) in various jurisdictions from more than 20 individual and corporate parties.