Qatar Business Law Forum Conference & Awards Night

• Judicial Developments at the Qatar International Court 
  • Recent cases on QIC jurisdiction, penalty clauses and damages, and employment 
• QFC Regulatory Shifts 
  • Enhancements to trust and foundation regulations for family offices and asset protection 
  • Navigating the fully operational Digital Asset Regulations 
• 2026 Legislative Reforms 
  • Update on bankruptcy law modernization 
  • The Global Minimum Tax and what it means for multinational in-house teams 
  • Capital gains relief for IPOs and intra-group transfers 
  • New regulatory framework for digital platforms and delivery services 
• Audience Q&A

Moderator: Michael Patchett-Joyce – Barrister 

• Umar Azmeh – Registrar, Qatar International Court 
• Roscoe Banks – Acting General Counsel, Qatar Financial Centre 
• Dr. Ehab Elsonbaty – Partner, DLA Piper 
• Amy Saretzky – Associate, Essa Al Sulaiti Law Firm

• Role of the Legal Function in Crisis Leadership and Decision-Making  
• Sudden sanctions and regulatory pivots 
  • Rapid decision-making in legal and commercial uncertainty
  • Secondary sanctions and cross-border exposure
  • Export controls, movement restrictions and emergency measures 
• Board and governance expectations  
  • Reporting, boardroom management, governance of AI tools in crisis decision-making (accuracy, accountability and oversight) 
• Audience Q&A

• Hilal Al-Khulaifi – Chief Legal Affairs & Regulatory Officer, Ooredoo Group  
• Rupert Bastick – Managing Director, MENA Consultants 
• Salman Mahmood – Partner, Sultan Al-Abdulla & Partners

• Contractual Armor and Tactical Response 
  • Triggering contractual protections: force majeure, hardship and change in law – what works in practice
  • Commercial trade-offs
  • Hard-coding resilience in your 2027 contracts: advance price escalation, supply chain diversification, and sanction-proof payment clauses 
• Financial friction and liquidity risk 
  • Willing-but-unable-to-pay scenarios: blocked correspondent banking routs and currency transfer restrictions
  • Insurance protection; notice timing and avoiding the war and political risk exclusion trap
  • Liquidity stress: managing group level financial covenants when project cash-flow is frozen by geopolitical events 
• Building resilient contracts post-2026: sanction clauses, supply chain diversification, price escalation mechanisms 
• Audience Q&A

Moderator: Victor Leginsky, Arbitrator 

Panelists: 

• Georges Abi Saab – Group General Counsel, Ooredoo  
• Monita Bargachie – General Counsel, Marateq Qatar 
• Dr. Zain Al-Abdin Sharar FCIArb – Senior Legal Counsel, Qatar International Court & Dispute Resolution Centre 
• Amr Hossam El-Din – Head of Arbitration and ADR / Senior Counsel, Al Sulaiti Law Firm

• Relying on AI under pressure: liability when the tools get it wrong  
  • Duty of care and director duties when a sanctions-screening or export control decision is taken in reliance on AI output 
  • Confident wrong answers: who owns the decision when the tool is wrong 
  • What regulators and correspondent banks expect to see – audit trail, human review step, validation of the tool  
• Losing access to your AI provider: exit rights, outsourcing rules and data recovery 
• Contract portfolio triage under time pressure: using AI to classify large numbers of contracts for force majeure, sanctions, and termination rights 
• Confidentiality, privilege and data sovereignty: 
  • Preserving legal privilege and confidentiality when prompts contain crisis-sensitive facts 
  • Cross-border transfer of confidential material to foreign-hosted models 
• Q&A

Moderator: Sarah Haddadi – Strategy Director, LexisNexis Middle East & North Africa 

Panelists: 

• Lara Salem – Director of Content Strategy, LexisNexis Middle East & North Africa