Corporate & Commercial Legal Services

Our corporate and commercial practice in Jeddah covers every stage of your business's life: from company formation and choosing the right legal structure, through foreign investment licensing for international investors, to governance, mergers and acquisitions, and shareholder disputes as your business grows or gets more complex.

One founding decision that follows you for years

Choosing your company's legal structure (sole proprietorship, LLC, closed joint-stock, or a foreign branch) isn't an administrative detail; it determines your personal liability for company debts, how profits are split between partners, and how easy or hard it will be to bring in a new investor later. Many business owners discover years later that the structure they picked at the start has become an obstacle to an expansion plan they never anticipated, and fixing it after the fact costs far more time and fees than getting it right from day one.

The foreign investment file has its own specific details

Getting a Ministry of Investment (MISA) license looks straightforward at first glance, but the required activity classification, minimum capital in certain sectors, and documents that need attestation from the country of origin, vary significantly depending on the exact activity being licensed. The common mistake here isn't filling out a form incorrectly; it's misclassifying the activity from the start, which leads to the application being rejected or delayed for months.

When partners become opponents

Most partner disputes that reach our office don't arise from a sudden disagreement; they arise from a founding agreement or shareholders' agreement that wasn't drafted precisely enough from the start: vague decision-making clauses, no clear exit mechanism for a partner, or no provision for what happens if a partner dies or becomes incapacitated. When the actual dispute arises, these gaps become the battleground, with each side interpreting them in their own favor. This isn't something you resolve by reading the contract yourself; interpreting ambiguous legal text before a court follows its own rules, different from an ordinary reading of the text.

M&A is more than signing an agreement

Any serious acquisition or merger needs due diligence that uncovers the target company's hidden liabilities, from pending litigation to long-term contractual obligations that may transfer automatically to the new owner. Skipping this step to save time is one of the most costly mistakes we see, with the new acquirer discovering after closing obligations they had no idea existed at the negotiation stage.

Each of these situations has its own specifics that no general explanation covers; browse the page below that describes your situation, or reach out to us directly on WhatsApp so we can review your file and explain the steps and fees.