Despite promotions and marketing from companies and operatives with vested interests, bankruptcy laws will not offer the safety or protection to business people as is being rumoured. The core issues surrounding doing business in the UAE have always been, and will continue to be, related to criminal allegations.
Bankruptcy Laws are not the "get out of jail free" card that people are being lead to believe. Essam Al Tamimi indicated that the laws are new, the courts, judges and experts that will be needed to process the cases are still in the infancy stages of development and we are yet to see how the bankruptcy laws will work in reality:
The issue for entrepreneurs and business owners has not so much been the issues related to debt, but the criminal actions that business owners are targets for. The bankruptcy laws will not protect business owners from legal actions. The legal risk to business owners has always been allegations of criminal conduct, even when the allegations have stemmed from a declining business.
Business owners will remain vulnerable to allegations of breach of trust, fraud, embezzlement and bounced cheques. Bankruptcy will not exempt business owners from criminal allegations and the UAE will remain risky.