DIWAN

Studies & Intelligence

Intelligence with context. Foresight that shapes decisions. The DIWAN register publishes commissioned studies, briefings, and market intelligence across sectors and jurisdictions.

Briefings room Membership

StreamsAll Trade & Capital 48 Law & Regulation 22 Country Files 181 Demand & Buyers 38 Platforms & Growth 154 Brand & Positioning 2 Commodities 21 Business 43 Technology 159 Cyber Security 3

GeographyAll

United Arab Emirates 22

Antigua and Barbuda 1

Bosnia and Herzegovina 1

Brazil 1

British Virgin Islands 1

Central African Republic 1

Hong Kong SAR, China 1

Korea, Dem. People's Rep. 1

Northern Mariana Islands 1

Sint Maarten (Dutch part) 1

St. Kitts and Nevis 1

St. Lucia 1

St. Martin (French part) 1

St. Vincent and the Grenadines 1

Sudan 1

Suriname 1

Sweden 1

Syrian Arab Republic 1

Trinidad and Tobago 1

Tunisia 1

Turkey 1

Turkmenistan 1

Turks and Caicos Islands 1

Virgin Islands (U.S.) 1

West Bank and Gaza 1

Yemen, Rep. 1

Zambia 1

Law & Regulation

15 of 196 items

Photo · Lucas Hemingway / Unsplash

RNK-DIWAN-085Legal review

DIWAN · 11 OCT 2026

UAE Federal Regulatory Watch — The Enforcement Turn (Q4 2026)

AML rebuilt, permits enforced, mergers gated, quotas due: what changed in AE-FED and what operators must do before year-end

The UAE's federal rulebook has shifted from writing rules to enforcing them. This edition of the AE-FED regulatory watch covers four fronts that moved since our last issue: the wholesale AML rebuild under Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025 (AED 100m fines, personal senior-management liability, a lower evidence bar, FATF evaluation year); the Advertiser Permit and SCA finfluencer regimes crossing into enforcement; the Competition Law's 2026 Executive Regulations making merger filing a suspensory stage-gate with a deemed-rejection default; and Emiratisation's 31 December 2026 checkpoint. With a dated 90-day radar and a five-move operator playbook.

AED 100mMAXIMUM CORPORATE AML FINE UNDER FDL 10/2025 (UP FROM AED 50M; SOME FINES UNCAPPED)

AED 300m / 40%MERGER FILING THRESHOLDS — UAE RELEVANT-MARKET TURNOVER OR COMBINED MARKET SHARE

AED 10,000FINE FOR POSTING PROMOTIONAL CONTENT WITHOUT AN NMA ADVERTISER PERMIT

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Photo · janith devinda / Unsplash

RNK-DIWAN-074Legal review

LEX · 01 OCT 2026

What the Gulf Actually Asks: Incorporation, Directors' Duties and Exit Costs in the GCC

A demand-driven legal review answering the questions readers put to the platform most — mainland vs ADGM vs DIFC, what boards owe, and what employment exits cost

Reader demand on the platform clusters on three questions: where to incorporate in the GCC, what directors owe once incorporated, and what employment exits cost. This study answers all three — a six-door comparison of UAE mainland, ADGM, DIFC, Saudi Arabia, QFC and Bahrain/Oman; the ADGM directors'-duties framework in plain language; and the notice and end-of-service formulas for DIFC, ADGM and the UAE mainland — with indicative costs and a decision playbook by profile.

≈46%SHARE OF READER QUESTIONS ABOUT FORMATION & JURISDICTION CHOICE

≈ USD 1,000ADGM TECH START-UP LICENCE, PER YEAR

14 daysDIFC NOTICE FOR MOST TENURES (3 MONTHS–5 YEARS)

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Photo · Riyas Mohammed / Unsplash

RNK-DIWAN-068Legal review

LEX · 23 SEPT 2026

How the Gulf Hires and Lets Go — The Employment Edition

Third reading of the Ask-desk demand signal: gratuity, notice, savings schemes and nationalisation quotas — the employment rulebook actually in force across the GCC in 2026, and what it costs to get it wrong

Readers of the legal platform keep asking a third family of questions after formation and directors' duties: how to hire, pay out and let go. This edition answers the recurring asks — end-of-service gratuity, notice periods, the quiet shift from accrued gratuity to funded savings (DEWS and the UAE federal scheme), the 2025 Saudi labour-law amendments, ADGM's 2024 Employment Regulations, and the Emiratisation penalty escalator — with worked numbers and a 90-day employer playbook.

~1 in 5ASK-DESK QUERIES CONCERNING EMPLOYMENT, TERMINATION OR NOTICE

5.83% → 8.33%DEWS / UAE SAVINGS-SCHEME CONTRIBUTION (FIRST 5 YEARS → AFTER)

7–90 daysDIFC STATUTORY NOTICE SPAN BY TENURE

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Photo · Unsplash

RNK-DIWAN-056Legal review

LEX · 06 SEPT 2026

GCC Directors' Duties: The Governance Edition

One board seat, three legal families — what Gulf directors personally owe in 2026, and what breach now actually costs

The fourth edition in the demand series answers the second-largest question cluster on the legal platform (≈20% of reader queries): what do directors and managers personally owe, and when does the company's problem become theirs? The answer has changed. Between the Dubai Court of Cassation's AED 152m personal award against a vice-chairman and CEO, the UAE bankruptcy law's shadow-director reach, KSA's 2022 law with the region's first express business-judgment defence, and the NMC proceedings in ADGM — where judgment on civil fraud claims against the founder and former CEO was reserved on 3 July 2026 after a 15-week trial and a US$600m mid-closing settlement by Bank of Baroda — personal liability in the Gulf has moved from paper risk to enforced norm. This study maps the duties across mainland UAE, ADGM, DIFC and Saudi Arabia, prices the breach, and gives five board seats a 90-day protection playbook.

US$600mSETTLED BY BANK OF BARODA DURING CLOSING ARGUMENTS OF THE NMC TRIAL IN ADGM, JULY 2026 — WITHOUT ADMISSION OF LIABILITY

AED 152mAWARDED PERSONALLY AND JOINTLY AGAINST A FORMER VICE-CHAIRMAN/CEO AND SUBSIDIARY MANAGER — DUBAI COURT OF CASSATION, APPEAL 866 OF 2024

≈20%SHARE OF READER QUERIES ON THE LEGAL PLATFORM THAT CONCERN DIRECTORS' DUTIES AND GOVERNANCE — THE SECOND-LARGEST DEMAND CLUSTER

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Photo · Unsplash

RNK-DIWAN-050Legal review

LEX · 05 SEPT 2026

Where the Gulf Incorporates — The Formation Edition

The GCC's dominant legal question, answered for 2026: mainland vs financial centre vs Saudi entry — venues, costs, tax and the new rulebook

Nearly half of everything readers ask a GCC legal platform is one question in different clothes: where should this company live? This study answers it for 2026 — a year in which DIFC, ADGM and the QFC all posted record intake simultaneously, the UAE mainland gained venture-style share structures and statutory redomiciliation, Saudi Arabia replaced foreign-investment licensing with registration, and a 15% domestic minimum tax quietly harmonised the top end of the market. Includes a venue scoreboard, cost and tax tables, the 2026 legal rails, and a decision playbook for five founder archetypes.

≈45%SHARE OF PLATFORM READER DEMAND THAT IS FORMATION / JURISDICTION CHOICE

8,844DIFC ACTIVE COMPANIES AT END-2025 (RECORD YEAR: 1,924 NEW, +28%)

13,353ADGM ACTIVE LICENCES IN Q1 2026 (OPERATIONAL ENTITIES +34.5% Y/Y)

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Photo · Unsplash

RNK-DIWAN-044Legal review

LEX · 27 AUG 2026

Where the Gulf Settles Its Disputes — The Forum Edition

Second reading of the Ask-desk demand signal: the full map of GCC dispute forums in 2026 — courts, common-law enclaves and arbitral institutions — what each costs, how each enforces, and how to choose before you sign

The first reading of this demand signal mapped what readers of a GCC legal platform actually ask. This second reading builds out the cluster that was answered most thinly — dispute triage — into the study it deserves. In 2026 the Gulf runs three parallel dispute systems side by side: onshore civil-law courts, offshore common-law courts (DIFC, ADGM), and a maturing bench of arbitral institutions (DIAC, arbitrateAD, SCCA). The gap between choosing well and choosing badly no longer shows up at the hearing — it shows up at enforcement. This study maps the forums, prices the routes, tests the enforcement rails against nine years of annulment data, and closes with a drafting playbook: the decision framework and the five clause defects that still sink otherwise sound contracts.

AED 18.6bnDIFC COURTS TOTAL CLAIMS VALUE, 2025 (CASES +43% YOY)

182SCCA NEW FILINGS IN 2025, UP 63% YEAR-ON-YEAR

91.7%SAUDI ANNULMENT MOTIONS REJECTED, 2017–2025 (AWARDS SURVIVE)

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Photo · Alexander Faé / Unsplash

CMD-DIWAN-007Feasibility

FORFAIT · 26 JUL 2026

The Regulator Shopping Guide: Fintech Licensing Across ADGM, DIFC, SAMA and QFC

Capital floors, real timelines and a decision matrix for payments, lending and digital-asset builders choosing a Gulf licence in 2026

There is no GCC passport: each licence buys one market, and the capital floors for a payments permission span roughly 150x between the cheapest and costliest sourced track (AED 100,000 for a CBUAE Category IV permission to AED 15 million for a stored-value facility). This study benchmarks the five regulators a Gulf fintech founder can realistically shop - ADGM FSRA, DIFC DFSA, SAMA, QFCRA and CBUAE - across licensing tracks for payments, lending and crypto, with sourced fees, capital requirements and authorisation timelines, and closes with a decision matrix mapping seven common business models to a primary and fallback regulator.

~150xSPAN OF PAYMENTS-TRACK MINIMUM CAPITAL ACROSS THE FIVE REGULATORS (CBUAE CAT IV TO UAE SVF)

4-6 monthsFASTEST SOURCED AUTHORISATION WINDOW (ADGM, SIMPLE PERMISSION)

USD 150,000DFSA APPLICATION FEE FOR A CRYPTO EXCHANGE OR CLEARING HOUSE LICENCE

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Photo · Brian Wangenheim / Unsplash

CMD-DIWAN-004Feasibility

FORFAIT · 23 JUL 2026

The Remittance Rewire: Digital Corridors from the Gulf to South Asia

Gulf corridors set records while the world's biggest corridor shrinks - and the cheapest rail is now an app, not an agent

A benchmark study of the UAE-India, UAE/Saudi-Pakistan, Saudi-Egypt and US-Mexico remittance corridors: record Gulf-origin flows (Pakistan $41.6bn, Egypt $41.5bn, India $135.5bn) against a shrinking US-Mexico control ($61.8bn, -4.6%), the 4.59%-vs-7.30% digital-cash cost spread, the US 1% cash-remittance tax, and why instant-payment linkages - not CBDCs - are the retail rail of the next 24 months.

6.36%GLOBAL AVERAGE COST OF SENDING $200 (Q3 2025) - DIGITAL 4.59% VS CASH 7.30%

$41.6bnPAKISTAN REMITTANCES FY2025-26, ALL-TIME RECORD (+8.6%)

$41.5bnEGYPT REMITTANCES CY2025, ALL-TIME RECORD (+40.5%)

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Photo · Darcey Beau / Unsplash

CMD-DIWAN-002Feasibility

FORFAIT · 22 JUL 2026

Golden Visas and Beyond: The GCC Residency Economy in 2026

Benchmarking the UAE, Saudi and Qatar residency products against a closing West — and sizing the property, schooling, insurance and advisory economy they feed

Between October 2023 and February 2026 the investment-migration market inverted: Europe withdrew supply while the Gulf productized it. This study benchmarks five class-matched residency products, quantifies the residency-linked economy anchored by Dubai's AED 917bn property year, and maps the 12–24 month regulatory outlook and advisory funnel.

+9,800PROJECTED NET MILLIONAIRE INFLOW TO THE UAE IN 2025 — THE WORLD'S LARGEST (HENLEY & PARTNERS)

AED 917bnDUBAI REAL-ESTATE TRANSACTION VALUE IN 2025 ACROSS 270,000+ DEALS (DLD, VIA ZAWYA)

US$200kQATAR'S NEW PROPERTY-RESIDENCY FLOOR, ANNOUNCED OCTOBER 2025 — THE GCC'S CHEAPEST TICKET (IMI DAILY)

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Photo · Roger Starnes Sr / Unsplash

CMD-DIWAN-001Feasibility

FORFAIT · 21 JUL 2026

The Gulf Data-Centre Race: Power, Chips and the New Digital Geography

Announced gigawatts, energized megawatts, and who actually captures the AI workloads

The Gulf has announced between 5 and 11 gigawatts of sovereign AI data-centre capacity while roughly 500 megawatts of third-party capacity is live today. This study benchmarks the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar against the two constrained incumbents — Singapore and Ireland — across capacity, power economics, latency position and regulation, and maps who captures which workloads to 2030.

5-11 GWSOVEREIGN AI CAMPUS CAPACITY ANNOUNCED ACROSS THE GCC

~500 MWGCC THIRD-PARTY DATA-CENTRE CAPACITY LIVE TODAY

~20%SHARE OF IRELAND'S METERED ELECTRICITY CONSUMED BY DATA CENTRES

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Photo · Jeffrey Eisen / Unsplash

CMD-DIWAN-010Masterplan

FORFAIT · 19 JUL 2026

Feeding the Gulf: The Food-Security Investment Map 2026–2030

Where sovereign capital is pulling private money — UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar benchmarked against the Netherlands and Israel, and the four-segment stack priced

Gulf food-security capital has moved upstream: over US$7 billion of verified sovereign and state-linked deals since 2020 now target the grain trade itself, while domestic production consolidates around what survives the desert P&L. This study benchmarks the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar against their two explicit reference systems — the Netherlands and Israel — then prices the four-segment investable stack: greenhouse-first controlled-environment agriculture, sovereign-anchored aquaculture, cash-yielding cold chain, and alternative proteins as a regulatory call option under Abu Dhabi's 2025 halal-integrated novel-food framework. It closes with the four co-investment structures that repeat across every disclosed transaction, and a candid risk register.

US$7bn+VERIFIED SOVEREIGN & STATE-LINKED AGRI-FOOD COMMITMENTS SINCE 2020

>90%SHARE OF UAE FOOD SUPPLY THAT IS IMPORTED

US$23.7BMEA COLD-CHAIN MARKET BY 2034 (FROM US$13.1B IN 2025)

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Photo · Nick Fewings / Unsplash

CMD-DIWAN-006Masterplan

FORFAIT · 18 JUL 2026

Sovereign AI in the Gulf: Compute, Models and Talent — Who Actually Leads

Announcement versus deployment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — benchmarked against Singapore and France

The Gulf sovereign-AI race has split into three distinct strategies: the UAE is deploying (a gigawatt-class campus physically under construction, chips export-licensed, a US$49bn infrastructure fund closed, and a continuous cadence of shipped models), Saudi Arabia is announcing at the largest scale (6.6GW by 2034) while execution is still early, and Qatar has pivoted to capital-as-strategy, buying exposure rather than building gigawatts. Benchmarked against Singapore and France, the UAE currently leads on execution score; the binding constraint for every programme is US chip-export approval, which has quietly become the real scoreboard.

200 MWFIRST GULF GIGAWATT-CLASS CAMPUS PHASE DUE ONLINE — STARGATE UAE, Q3 2026

6.6 GWHUMAIN ANNOUNCED COMPUTE TARGET BY 2034

US$49bnMGX FUND I CLOSED COMMITMENTS, JULY 2026

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Photo · Zach Rowlandson / Unsplash

EXT-MENA-FAMILYOFFICE-01Feasibility

DIWAN · 15 JUL 2026

The Quiet Capital: Mapping the MENA Family-Office Intelligence Gap

Two hundred ninety offices or six thousand? The Gulf's family-office boom is real and registrable — and almost entirely unmeasured where it matters. Where the measurement gap becomes a market.

The Middle East's family-office population is quoted anywhere between 290 and 6,000-plus, overseeing an estimated ~$500bn or more — a definitional fog no other asset-owner class would tolerate. This study benchmarks DIFC and ADGM against Singapore, Switzerland and London, maps the ~$1tn succession wave onto the region's regulatory and services stack, and locates the commercial opening: the intelligence layer the boom has not yet built.

~$1tnESTIMATED INTERGENERATIONAL WEALTH TRANSFER ACROSS THE MIDDLE EAST BY 2030 (SOURCE: MCKINSEY, CITED IN THE DIFC INNOVATION HUB / JULIUS BAER / EUROCLEAR REPORT NAVIGATING THE FUTURE OF INHERITANCE)

290 vs ~6,000+THE DEFINITIONAL SPREAD IN COUNTS OF MIDDLE EAST FAMILY OFFICES: FORMAL SINGLE-FAMILY-OFFICE CENSUS AGAINST THE BROADEST INDUSTRY USAGE (SOURCES: DELOITTE PRIVATE, DEFINING THE FAMILY OFFICE LANDSCAPE 2024; INDUSTRY COMMENTARY — METHOD IN SOURCES & METHODOLOGY)

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Photo · Kurt z / Unsplash

EXT-GULF-COMMODITY-01Feasibility

DIWAN · 15 JUL 2026

The Paper Trade: Digitising Physical-Commodity Flows Through the Gulf

Electronic bills of lading, the MLETR statute race and whether Dubai can take documentation share from Geneva, Singapore and London

Gulf economies already route $1.6tn of merchandise trade, yet the documents that carry title, credit and jurisdiction still clear through incumbent hubs and English law. This study benchmarks Dubai against Geneva, Singapore and London on legal enablement, firm concentration and registry depth. It finds the window to capture documentation share open until roughly 2030 — contingent on one missing federal statute rather than on technology.

$1.6tnGCC MERCHANDISE FOREIGN TRADE IN 2024, THE REGIONAL PRIZE WHOSE DOCUMENTATION IS CONTESTABLE (SOURCE: GCC-STAT)

$2.5tnGLOBAL TRADE-FINANCE GAP AS OF THE LATEST SURVEY YEAR, UP FROM $1.7TN IN 2020 (SOURCE: ADB GLOBAL TRADE FINANCE GAP SURVEY, DECEMBER 2025)

26,000+DMCC MEMBER COMPANIES AT END-2025 AFTER 2,300 ADDITIONS IN THE YEAR, WITH TECHNOLOGY OVERTAKING COMMODITIES AS THE LARGEST SECTOR (SOURCE: DMCC 2025 RESULTS)

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Photo · Dayne Topkin / Unsplash

EXT-UAE-SME-01Customer research

DIWAN · 15 JUL 2026

Easy to Start, Hard to Keep Clean: The UAE SME Formation and Compliance Market

Formation venues compete on price and speed; the durable cost of owning a UAE company now sits in the tax-and-filing stack that follows

The UAE remains one of the cheapest and fastest places in the Gulf to incorporate, with entry licenses from roughly AED 6,000 and approval in days. Since corporate tax took effect in June 2023, however, the recurring compliance line — registration, bookkeeping, VAT and corporate tax filings — has become broadly venue-independent and often exceeds the annual license renewal itself. This study benchmarks five formation venues against Saudi and Bahraini references and sizes the services market that keeps the country's ~557,000 SMEs clean.

~557,000SMES OPERATING IN THE UAE AT END-2022 — THE INSTALLED BASE THE COMPLIANCE-SERVICES MARKET SERVES (SOURCE: UAE MINISTRY OF ECONOMY, VIA WAM)

AED 375,000THE DOUBLE THRESHOLD: TAXABLE INCOME ABOVE IT ATTRACTS 9% CORPORATE TAX, AND TAXABLE SUPPLIES ABOVE IT FORCE VAT REGISTRATION (SOURCE: FEDERAL DECREE-LAW 47 OF 2022; FEDERAL DECREE-LAW 8 OF 2017)

AED 10,000ADMINISTRATIVE PENALTY FOR LATE CORPORATE TAX REGISTRATION, WAIVABLE UNDER THE FTA'S 2025 INITIATIVE FOR ENTITIES FILING WITHIN SEVEN MONTHS OF THEIR FIRST PERIOD END (SOURCE: CABINET DECISION 75 OF 2023 AS AMENDED; FEDERAL TAX AUTHORITY)

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