Cross-Border Advisory Services

Yes. UAE-only mandates make up a substantial part of our work, particularly for businesses entering the UAE from Europe, the wider GCC, Asia and elsewhere. The same applies for India-only mandates. The cross-border capability is available where it is relevant — it is not a precondition to working with us.

Engagements begin with an initial scoping conversation at no cost to the client. The scoping conversation establishes what the business is trying to achieve, what is already in place and where the structuring questions sit. From that conversation, we propose a defined scope of work with a clear fee basis — usually a fixed fee for advisory engagements of defined scope, or a retainer for ongoing work — so the client understands what is included before any commitment is made.

An initial scoping conversation generally resolves the early questions within one to two meetings. A structuring or advisory engagement of defined scope typically runs over four to eight weeks, depending on the complexity of the structure, the number of jurisdictions involved and the speed at which decisions are taken on the client side. Reviews of existing structures usually take two to four weeks. Where execution follows — incorporation, licensing, banking — timelines depend on regulator and bank responsiveness, and we manage the workstream against realistic expectations set at the outset.

Our work focuses on the structural, regulatory, tax and commercial advisory that determines whether a structure will hold up after it is in place. For execution — incorporation filings, licensing, banking introductions, ongoing administration — we either work directly, or on some occasions with carefully selected execution partners across the UAE and India, and we coordinate the execution within the same engagement. Clients typically receive the advisory and the execution as a single coordinated workstream rather than as separate engagements.

Yes. A meaningful proportion of our work is structural review of existing entities — typically initiated when a bank has raised a question, when a tax review has identified a gap, when a new investor has flagged a concern during diligence, or when the business has grown and the original structure no longer matches the operating model. A review covers whether the structure matches the actual activity, whether the tax and transfer pricing position is defensible, whether banking and substance requirements are met, and whether the structure would withstand external scrutiny. Where changes are recommended, we advise on what they are and how to implement them with the least disruption.

A significant proportion of the structuring work we are asked to do has a cross-border dimension between the UAE and India. The two jurisdictions interact on tax, FEMA, transfer pricing, banking, treaty access and profit repatriation. Where the same group has an entity in each, or is planning to, the structure on one side cannot be designed in isolation from the other without creating friction at the point where they meet. Treating them as components of the same decision — rather than as two separate engagements — is how we are organised.

Where a mandate requires specialist input — sector-specific market research, technical regulatory review, jurisdictional advice in a third country — we coordinate with carefully selected local specialists rather than treating it as separate work for the client to manage. Our role is to define the right question, scope the work proportionately, evaluate the inputs critically and connect the findings to the decision they are meant to support.