Michael Kortbawi

Partner,
Dubai, UAE

T. +971 4 528 5555
E. michael.kortbawi@bsabh.com


Michael is a Senior Partner in our Corporate and M&A practice, based in our DIFC office in Dubai.

He focused on corporate and regulatory advice in relation to all aspects of corporate and finance law. This includes cross-border financing, real estate finance and transactions involving financial institutions and insurance companies. He leads our bankruptcy, insolvency and restructuring practice. 

Michael is an expert in financial restructuring – leading the team in several large restructuring matters over the past 3 years, including one of the largest restructuring exercises in the Middle East.

Also leading the firm’s banking & finance function, Michael oversees the majority of the firm’s banking matters, particularly corporate restructuring matters. 

Michael has extensive experience in the Middle East region, with over 18 years’ experience practising in the UAE. Michael has successfully spearheaded the organic growth of BSA into the six countries in which it now operates.

His diverse array of key clients includes Halliburton, ADCB, Emirates NBD, Mashreq Bank, CIMIC Group, JBF Industries and Banijay Group. 

Michael and his team are known to ‘provide valuable and practical knowledge of the law delivered to international standards’. 


Areas of expertise
services
  • Corporate & M&A
  • Commercial
  • Regulatory & Compliance
  • Employment
  • Banking & Finance
industry
  • Insurance
  • Financial Institutions
  • Life Sciences & Healthcare
  • Retail & Consumer Goods
  • Leisure & Hospitality
Highlights of experience
  • Representing industry leader in PET manufacturing, in a debt-for equity swap; one of the largest restructuring exercises the UAE has witnessed.
  • Advising Dr BR. Shetty, founder of NMC Healthcare, Finablr Payments and Foreign Exchange Technology Platform, and Neopharma on restructuring his group of companies in the UAE.
  • Advising a UAE bank-led syndicate of lenders on the UAE, DIFC and ADGM law perspective in an AED 5 billion debt restructuring of a privately owned regional business conglomerate
  • Advising Mashreq Bank on their AED 135 million claim against KBBO Group
  • Advising an Australian, publicly listed multinational contractor on potential insolvency, restructuring and exiting the region.
  • Advising syndicate of banks on enforcement action and strategy involving securities and collateral (property mortgage, vessel mortgage, assignment of rights, assignments of receivables etc.) in various jurisdictions from more than 20 individual and corporate parties.
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