Islamic Finance
Taylor Wessing has a long-standing history of advising, on a global basis, counterparties in relation to Shariah compliant transactions. In particular, we have substantial experience of acting for lenders on how to make secured lending available to Shariah compliant funding vehicles whilst still complying with the conventional requirements of a lender's credit process.
Our expertise has proven to be invaluable in bringing together conventional banks, Islamic banks and other financiers with investors that require funding to be provided on a Shariah compliant basis. Our clients appreciate that our input gives the relevant counterparties greater opportunities to have a meaningful dialogue that has, in practice, produced results that meet the needs of all stakeholders.
We are well known in the sector. We have a good working relationship and knowledge of AAOIFI, IFSB and other leading standard setting bodies in the industry. In particular, we have acted for governments, financiers (senior lenders, mezzanine lenders and joint venture partners) on a variety of transactions. We have substantial experience in the use of the Murabaha and Ijara financing models secured against real estate and in the use of corporate bonds (sukuks) or joint ventures for project financing, corporate finance and funds transactions (Mudaraba and Musharaka).
We have also advised on other Shariah compliant models that are commonly used in the market place.
An extra dimension that arises with any Islamic financing structure often raises unusual tax and regulatory issues and we work closely with our Corporate Tax and Financial Services Advisory teams to ensure that any such issues or risks are addressed as early as possible in any transaction.
