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Middle East Teams 2018

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CITI

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Middle East Teams 2018

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Can you briefly explain how the legal team is structured, highlighting key individuals and their role within the department? Citi’s Central America (CA) legal team is structured with general counsels...

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With a presence in Peru for almost 100 years, the financial activities of Citibank del Peru are supported by a legal team consisting of four highly experienced in-house lawyers who...

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Citi’s Greek legal team is made of industry professionals highly skilled in institutional banking, particularly within the global shipping industry, private banking, global markets and corporate investment banking. Citi Greece...

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The Canadian franchise of Citigroup has roots in Canada dating back 100 years. In Canada, the global bank operates multiple entities including schedule II and schedule III banks that service...

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CITIC Capital is one of the top 10 biggest financial groups in Hong Kong and in order to ensure its business is conducted smoothly and compliantly, a highly praised legal...

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Kate Fewings, regional head of legal for global financial giant Citi in the Asia Pacific region, leads a team of approximately 220 lawyers in the Citi Asia Pacific legal team...

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The Citibank Colombia legal team has been through significant change and accomplished much in the last year and continues to demonstrate its strength. Led expertly by general counsel Francisco Baquerizo...

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Particularly lauded for its excellent record in litigations, the China CITIC Bank legal function is also well-respected for its generally high level of expertise and extremely proficient core of senior...

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In common with their contemporaries in the financial services sector across Europe, Citi’s Ireland-based in-house lawyers have been dealing with an ever-increasing set of regulatory requirements of late, with this...

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Following Citi’s 2016 divestiture and consumer business sale, the bank’s stellar legal function in Central America has implemented leaner and more efficient processes in order to serve internal and external...

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The March 2017 sale of Citi’s consumer business in Argentina had a big impact on the company’s legal team in the country. Explaining the effect of the function’s reduction in...

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About

Fauzia Kehar, director and cluster legal head for Gulf and Pakistan, manages a long standing team of seven lawyers as direct reports and two as matrix reports, all of whom have cross-regional experience in both common and civil laws and financial legal matters. The team is spread across different jurisdictions with a majority of lawyers placed in Dubai, which acts as a hub for the Middle East and Africa division, whilst others are based in Bahrain and Pakistan. The team acts as a crucial adviser for Citigroup’s entire business in the Middle East as it can provide expert regional, country and issue-specific advice on the complexities of the region in terms of regulation, governance, banking and all other areas. Each lawyer is encouraged to transfer around the Middle East team locations in order to broaden his or her experience and exposure. There are three lawyers in Dubai that currently report to Kehar directly: Hanan Hammoud, Ada Bardi, and Hussam Aljagoub. Hammoud, deputy cluster head Gulf and Saudi country counsel works on all matters consumer and corporate related and was instrumental in working on the project that enabled Citi to obtain a CMA licence in Saudi Arabia. Bardi, consumer legal head Gulf, has diverse experience enabling her to transcend into corporate work as well and is said to bring a ‘very matter of fact approach to the business and is able to find solutions to complex legal issues that might not always have precedent and require experience and calculated risk taking on legal interpretations’, according to Kehar. Hussam Aljaghoub, senior legal counsel, ‘adds colour to the legal team in having to interact and charm bankers on a daily basis and coming up with solutions that require confidence and experience’. He is involved in managing legal work relating to the remedial portfolio oversight and handles complicated legal issues for Citi’s large corporates segment. About the team dynamic, Kehar says, ‘the department follows an open door policy and we regard ourselves not just as a second line of defence but part of working with our first line transaction bankers from the inception of a transaction/business concept right until fulfilment’. Recently, the team has worked on initiating a standard documentation process for the UAE that matches the global terms and conditions which Citi use elsewhere and achieve consistency across its global operation and reduce fine print signatures. The team has also successfully obtained the Capital Markets Authority license for the establishment of Citigroup in Saudi Arabia, and obtained a category one license for the establishment of a subsidiary within the Dubai International Financial Centre. This branch was setup within the precincts of the financial free zone as an offshore booking unit for loans as well as enabling retail customers to benefit from the firms services from outside of the cluster. The team continues to provide expert support to the capital markets teams, M&A and banking teams as well as being instrumental in the firm’s digitisation efforts.

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