PRACTICE FOCUS
Paul Homsy has more than 30 years of experience in the Middle East (in the Arabian Gulf countries in particular) and additional experience in cross-border transactions in the Far East, Europe, and Latin America. He has advised on billions of dollars of transactions involving acquisitions, joint ventures, technology transfer agreements, investment funds, and conventional and Sharia compliant financings.
Paul practiced law in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for five years as the managing partner of Sidley & Austin’s former office there.
He also has a wealth of practical business experience and relationships among the sovereign wealth funds, ultra-high net worth investors, banks, and investment companies of the Arabian Gulf to assist clients in developing and growing their businesses in that region.
REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS
- Represented leading global advertising company in acquisition of and joint venture with the largest privately-owned advertising company in the Middle East, involving subsidiaries in 10 different Arab countries in the Arabian Gulf, the Levant, and North Africa
- Represented leading global consumer products company in establishing a joint venture for the manufacture of personal care products in Saudi Arabia and in obtaining necessary approvals from the Saudi Foreign Capital Investment Committee and Ministry of Commerce
- Represented the largest Islamic bank in the world on about $3 billion of Sharia compliant financings, as well as on litigation relating to $120 million of claims against Enron
- Represented leading U.S. bank in the establishment of a Sharia compliant equipment leasing fund
- Represented Kuwaiti investment company in a $300 million Sharia compliant U.S. real estate fund
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
- Abu Dhabi Global Markets Family Office Conference, Speaker
- Eisner Amper Private Equity Real Estate Summit
- CNBC, Bloomberg Television, Reuters TV News Service, Middle East Commentator
- Quoted on the Middle East in the Financial Times, The Economist, Journal of Commerce, Gulf News, and Bermuda Royal Gazette
- C3 U.S. Arab Business Summit, Speaker on Islamic Finance
- Leaders in Islamic Finance Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, Keynote Speaker, presided over by Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey
- King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Islamic Finance, Guest Lecturer
- Middle East Law and Islamic Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, and Harvard University, Speaker at various conferences