Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has announced a consultation for amendments to its civil and commercial laws.
The amendments seek to provide statutory certainty to the source and interpretation of DIFC law, the financial centre said in a statement on Thursday.
DIFC laws are supplemented with reference to English common law and interpreted in accordance with both English common law and the laws of other established common law jurisdictions.
The proposed amendments do not seek to change this approach, the DIFC Authority’s chief legal officer, Jacques Visser, said in a statement, but rather provide statutory confirmation, for practitioners and the Courts, regarding the source and interpretation of DIFC law.
To address the source of law issue, a new Article 8A has been added to the Law of Application. This provides that DIFC Law is to be determined first by reference to DIFC statute but that where a specific doctrine, cause of action, defence or remedy has not been expressly included in DIFC statute, the “gap” may be filled by English common law.
A new Article 8B has also been added to the Application Law to clarify that interpretation of DIFC statute may be guided by principles developed in respect of analogous laws in established common law jurisdictions.
The consultation has been posted for a 30-day period, ending on June 1, 2024.
