About

Matthew Donovan serves as the group general counsel and group chief legal officer (board member) for Ajlan & Bros Holding, Saudi Arabia, based in Riyadh. The group encompasses 27 distinct investment sectors and is responsible for overseeing 15 subsidiaries that collectively manage assets worth $30 billion in various international sectors, including but not limited to mining, healthcare, defence and security, aviation, infrastructure, real estate, construction, agriculture, gaming, digital banking, and logistics.

The group has a global workforce of 15,000 employees. Matthew leads a direct team of 12 legal practitioners and oversees an additional 20, including subsidiary general counsel, legal directors, counsel, and paralegals from Saudi Arabia, the UK, the US, Europe, Africa, and the Levant. Their legal department manages an annual external counsel budget exceeding USD$10m, although their preference is to handle a broad spectrum of legal work in-house, ranging from day-to-day commercial matters to complex tasks like due diligence, complex commercial contracts, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, investment agreements, litigation, and corporate governance concerns. The team functions as a comprehensive legal department, akin to a small law firm.

In addition to his role at Ajlan & Bros, Matthew is the founder and general counsel of Fiducia, a legal and commercial consultancy registered in the UAE. Fiducia specialises in offering corporate matters, including the areas of private equity, mergers and acquisitions, and the negotiation of significant commercial contracts. Matthew provides expertise in English and UAE law, as well as the legal frameworks of other GCC countries. Matthew and his team primarily serve as outsourced general counsel and legal counsel for clients that Matthew retained from his time in private practice. Matthew continues to deliver legal services on both a project-by-project and retainer basis. The consultancy’s growth is primarily derived from referrals from clients and networking groups. 

Matthew has a distinguished legal career spanning two decades. He spent the first ten years practicing law in London, where he qualified, and during this period, worked with prominent US law firms such as Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, Crowell & Moring, and Brown Rudnick, specialising in corporate and commercial law. Subsequently, he transitioned to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, where he continued his legal career, accumulating another ten years of experience in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region.

Matthew has a wealth of experience advising clients on a broad range of matters. His expertise encompasses negotiations and drafting of complex commercial contracts, intellectual property and technology transfer agreements, regulatory and sanctions guidance, compliance, risk assessment, and corporate governance best practices. Matthew is well-versed in matters related to investment and shareholder agreements, capital raising (including IPOs and private equity), corporate (re)structuring, and mergers and acquisitions. Matthew has advised clients on UAE (and DIFC) law, English law, and Saudi law. Furthermore, he has worked extensively with external counsel in jurisdictions beyond his remit of expertise.

Matthew also specialises in commercial dispute resolution, corporate governance best practices and their practical implementation. Moreover, Matthew is dedicated to knowledge sharing, training, and mentoring junior lawyers and in-house legal teams. He lectures at the Dubai Legal Affairs Department on corporate and commercial legal topics and serves as a non-executive director (NED) for various UAE businesses, including quasi-governmental entities.