Corporate Governance Advisory Services in UAE
Who decides what, who can sign what, and what happens when shareholders disagree. We design the corporate governance your business actually runs on, and put it in writing before it is tested.
Why corporate governance matters in the UAE
Most owners file governance under paperwork for listed companies. That stopped being true when corporate tax arrived.
A company is treated as resident where its real decisions are made, not where it is registered. The test also runs in reverse: a UAE company whose board meets elsewhere can be claimed as resident by that other country.
One set of records does four jobs.
Most privately held companies do not have it.
What our corporate governance services cover
Governance framework design
The shape of how decisions get made: board, committees, management, and what each can settle without asking anyone.
Board and committee structure
Who sits on the board, which committees exist, what each one is responsible for, and how often they are required to meet.
Delegation of authority
Who can sign, commit and spend, up to what limit, and who has to approve anything above it.
Board and shareholder frameworks
Decision rights, reserved matters and deadlock terms, set out so your lawyers have something clear to draft from.
How the frameworks workIndependent governance review
A look at the governance you already have, and what a bank, an auditor or a regulator would question first.
AML & Compliance Health CheckMinutes, registers and records
Board minutes, resolutions, registers and an authority matrix, written so they still make sense two years later.
When businesses come to us for governance
If one of these sounds familiar, it is a good time to talk.
Book a consultation- You are bringing an outside shareholder into a family business
- You hold entities in several countries and no shared board calendar
- You cannot say who is allowed to sign what without asking someone
- You are in a joint venture with no agreed way to settle a deadlock
- You were asked for board minutes and could not produce them
- You are getting ready for a bank, an investor or a first audit
How corporate governance advisory works
Review
We look at how decisions are made today, who holds authority, and where the gaps would show.
Design
We set the board structure, the committees, the authority limits and the reserved matters.
Document
We prepare the charters, terms of reference, authority matrix and meeting calendar.
Maintain
We set a review point and keep the framework current as owners, entities and banks change.
Corporate governance in the UAE: common questions
Not in the way it is for listed companies, which follow Securities and Commodities Authority rules. Private companies carry far fewer formal obligations. In practice the bar is higher than the law sets, because banks, auditors, tax authorities and incoming shareholders all ask the same questions anyway.
No. We design the decision rights, reserved matters and deadlock terms, then work alongside your lawyers, who draft and execute the agreement. The drafting is legal work and we keep that line clear.
A corporate service provider keeps your filings and renewals current, which is a separate job. Nobody files your decision rights, your reserved matters or your authority limits, and those are the things that get tested when a bank, an auditor or a co-owner asks.
It produces the records an application rests on: where decisions were taken, where the board met, and who was present. The decision itself sits with the authority, not with us.
It depends on where you need the company to be treated as resident and what your banks expect. Residency tests look at where directors live and where meetings are held, so board composition is a structuring decision, not an administrative one.
Holding Company & SPV FormationGet your governance reviewed.
Send us your board papers and shareholding as they stand. We will tell you what is missing before someone else does.
Book a consultation