Oman Office Update

Curtis is pleased to announce a new arrangement with expanding Omani litigation firm Mehdi Al Lawati Law Office (MALO). Effective from 2 June 2016, the new association is exclusive to Curtis.

The lawyers at Curtis and managing partner of MALO, Mehdi Al Lawati, know each other well, having already worked closely for over a decade. Experienced lawyer Mehdi Al Lawati has excellent relationships with the firm's clients in Muscat and is an integral part of Curtis' litigation and arbitration offering to clients.

Curtis' disputes capability will be further enhanced by the arrival at MALO of seasoned litigation lawyer Jamal Al Amri, who is licenced in the Primary and Appeal Courts in Oman.

News of Curtis' enhanced local litigation capability comes on the heels of the promotion of partner Simon Ward to Head of Disputes in the firm's Muscat office.

Bruce B. Palmer, Curtis' managing partner in Oman, commented "Running a market-leading disputes practice means constantly developing and growing the offering to clients. We are very happy with the arrangement and with Simon's promotion and look forward to Curtis' continuing excellence in the disputes field."

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Mary Allan Joins Curtis as Infrastructure Partner in Muscat

International law firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP has enhanced its Infrastructure practice by adding Mary Allan as a partner based in Muscat, Oman.

Ms. Allan comes to Curtis from the Oman office of Denton Wilde Sapte, where she was head of infrastructure/projects. She has focused her work on projects in utilities and general mandate work for energy clients in utilities and the energy sectors. She has done much of her work on behalf of governments, particularly regarding regulatory issues for new power and water projects.

Ms. Allan has spent almost her entire career within the Middle East. She has been based most of the time in Muscat. She was in the Oman capital first from 1996 until 2002 and then, after a four-year stint in Denton’s Dubai office, she returned to Muscat in 2006 where she has been ever since.

“Mary Allan is well-connected within the Middle East and has represented a number of major clients in the energy and infrastructure sectors,” said Bruce Palmer, managing partner of Curtis’ Muscat office. “Her experience in Oman and across the GCC region will enable Curtis to establish itself further as one of the area’s leading international law firms.”

Ms. Allan has been recognized as one of the top practitioners in Projects and Energy by Chambers & Partners Global Directories which quoted sources praising her "excellent experience in the projects area" and by Legal 500 which called her “an excellent lawyer, extremely good in relation to project work and knowledge of the Oman legal system.”

The Curtis Infrastructure Development practice handles a broad range of domestic and international transactions, including some of the world's largest and best known project finance transactions and projects in the international petroleum and power industries. Our lawyers counsel infrastructure clients on the full range of corporate, financial and regulatory issues they face, representing project sponsors, investors, lenders, developers and state entities operating in a wide array of industries. The firm has particular expertise within the Energy sector, covering every segment of the industry – power plants, oil and gas exploration and development, refineries, substations, greenfield facilities, terminals, tankers, pipelines, transmission lines and mining – and spanning the generation, transmission and distribution aspects of electric energy development, regulation and financing.

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Judge's Verdict: Landlords & Tenants

This article was written by Curtis partner James Harbridge of the firm’s Muscat office. It originally appeared in the Muscat Daily and is republished here with permission.

Landlord/ tenant disputes are sometimes quite prevalent. Furthermore, on some occasions, the outcome at court may differ from what one would have expected.

The facts that led to Supreme Court case 273/06 were as follows:

A property owner rented out a property to the tenant, who planned to use the premises as an educational establishment. However, when the tenant stopped paying the rent, the owner of the building filed a case in the Primary Court. The tenant was ordered to pay RO12,000 in accrued rentals to the owner. This sounds fairly routine, but in fact it was a judgment that surprised the tenant, for reasons explained below.

The tenant, meanwhile, filed an appeal to the Appeal Court, stating that the two parties had never actually signed a lease. He also relied on the resultant fact that there was no tenancy agreement registered with the relevant municipality. Accordingly, the tenant reasoned, the Court should disregard the case as it is a statutory requirement in Oman that a building lease must be registered.

However, the Appeal Court ruled against the tenant, and upheld the RO12,000 judgement in favour of the landlord.

In consequence, the tenant appealed to the Supreme Court. He relied upon four lines of appeal:

1. The Primary and Appeal Courts in Muscat should have declined to hear the dispute as the property in question was not in Muscat;
2. The lease contract had never been signed;
3. He had never derived a benefit from the lease, as he had never obtained the necessary licence from the Ministry of Education; and
4. He had made some payments by cheque and therefore the claimed amount was wrong.

On November 8, 2006, the Supreme Court gave its ruling. They adjudged that the lower courts in Muscat had been right to hear the dispute, as although the building was outside Muscat, the two parties had met and negotiated the lease in Muscat. Moreover, it was held that a dispute regarding an unregistered lease could be heard, as, in the particular circumstances of this case, the tenant had admitted there was a lease contract in place. Indeed, it seems that the fact that the tenant stated he had made some rental payments by cheque was evidence in itself from the tenant that a landlord-tenant relationship existed and that the monthly amounts paid were connected to the lease arrangements.

The judges, moreover, sated that it was not the fault of the landlord that the tenant failed to obtain the necessary licence from the Ministry of Education. Finally, the Supreme Court state that it could only hear legal arguments, and not factual disputes, meaning that the fourth ground of appeal lacked credibility.

In this way, the Supreme Court upheld the lower courts' judgements that the tenant must pay RO12,000 to the landlord.

The lack of signature on the contract was deemed not to be a problem, as the parties had formed the contract by a combination of writing it and then acting in accordance with what it stated.

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