Ehab Elsonbaty

Dr. Ehab Elsonbaty

Partner

Partner, Corporate
Chair – US/Middle East Initiative


About

Dr. Ehab Elsonbaty, partner in New York, chairs DLA Piper’s Middle East Initiative. He advises Middle Eastern entities seeking to do business in the Americas and Americas clients seeking to do business in the Middle East. Ehab’s extensive transactional and regulatory experience enables him to provide efficient and effective legal support in a wide variety of business matters.

He leads our Middle East initiative, coordinating the firm’s global platform, multi-practice bilingual capabilities in the US and strong presence on the ground in the Middle East to help the firm deliver seamless cross-border solutions for Middle East entities, among them corporate enterprises, private equity investors, family offices, government entities and sovereign wealth funds, to do business in the Americas, and for Americas companies seeking to do business in the Middle East. The initiative strives to help clients maximize inbound and outbound opportunities arising from this dynamic region, providing comprehensive bilingual legal services and sensitive on-the-ground awareness of each geography in this diverse region.

Ehab’s practice focuses on sovereign wealth funds, government projects and affairs, corporate matters, corporate governance, sustainability, ESG and Sharia Islamic-compliant legal services. 

Before joining DLA Piper, Ehab served as senior legal counsel and head of corporate governance and government affairs and senior advisor to the general counsel on special projects at the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Qatar's sovereign wealth fund and one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. There, he was responsible for strategic, corporate, sustainability, ESG and special projects and transactions valued at billions of dollars as well as was a member of several management committees including the Management Investment Committee and the Crisis Management Committee.

Earlier in his career, he served for six years as senior legal advisor to the Amiri Diwan, the office of the Amir of Qatar at the Royal Court. During this time, Ehab was also a member of many policy and legal committees, among them the Permanent Legislative Committee and the Committee for Review of Legislation of the Council of Ministers, as well as a member of the National Committee to Review Commercial Laws of the Ministry of Economy and Trade. Ehab drafted and contributed to several laws and regulations of Qatar, GCC and Middle East. In addition, he served as a public prosecutor in the Egyptian public prosecution, and as a judge judiciary and Ministry of Justice for more than 15 years, most recently as a judge in Cairo's Court of Appeal. He is currently admitted to the Bar in Egypt and is a certified and practicing arbitrator and mediator, and a member of the Egyptian Judges Club. 

During his service in Egypt, Ehab was seconded to the Ministry of Justice’s Office for International Cooperation and Human Rights, was an advisor to the Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology, a member of the National Committee for Humanitarian Law, a member of the National Committee for Counter-Terrorism and the national committee to control the public elections. He has provided consultancy support to several regional and international organizations, such as UNODC, ITU, UNCTAD, the Council of Europe and the Arab League.

Admitted in Egypt
Licensed as a Foreign Legal Consultant by the NY State Supreme Court, Appellate Division

Languages
  • Arabic
  • English
  • Italian
  • French
Education
  • Ph.D., Queen Mary University of London and Mansoura University
  • Master’s Degree in International Business, Law and Public Policy, Bologna University 
  • L.L.M., Ain Shams University

Awards

  • 500 Power List, 2017

Bylines

  • "Saudi Arabia’s Regional Headquarters Program: Insights for Multinationals," Lexis Nexis Middle East, May 7, 2024
  • "Digital Transformation and Cloud-First Policies: Qatar as a Regional Example," Lexis Nexis, 2021
  • "Norms ad guidelines for drafting of laws and regulations," Lexis Nexis, 2019
  • "Contractual aspects of cloud computing," United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Working Group IV, Fifty-sixth session New York, April 2018
  • "What entities should know about the new Protection of Personal Data and Privacy Law," Qatar Business Law Review, No. 1, 2017
  • "Variegated landscape of Mediation Regulation, A Comparative Study in Europe and the World," Chapters on Egypt & Qatar, Netherlands, 2014
  • "Technical and Legal Challenges to the Use of Modern Technologies in Litigation and ADRs," Cairo/Doha, 2013
  • "The Use of Internet for Terrorist Purposes, a manual for law enforcements and prosecution," Publication of the UNODC, Vienna, 2012
  • "The Arabic Version of the Council of Europe Convention on Cyber Crime," Arab Renaissance House, Cairo, 2010

Seminars

  • Speaker, "Briefing on the Red Sea Shipping Crisis with Tim Lenderking, U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen," September 27, 2024
  • Speaker, "Competition For Arbitration Seats," Fifth Arab Arbitration Conference, Cairo, Egypt, September 13, 2024
  • Podcast Guest, "Spotlight on expanding into the UAE - Episode 6," SS&C Technologies - Powering Possibilities, August 2, 2024
  • Speaker, Family Office Roundtable, Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) and DLA Piper, New York, July 2024
  • Host, "The Middle East and US: Opportunities and Investments," SelectUSA, U.S. Commercial Service, and DLA Piper, June 23, 2024
  • Speaker, Commercial Law Development Program, Cairo Egypt, June 2-3, 2024
  • Speaker, "VISION “D33” Leveraging AI within Fintech," Frontiers of Digital Finance, Dubai, May 2024
  • Speaker, "AI at the Intersection: Impact of AI on Business Innovation and Regulatory Compliance", Frontiers of Digital Finance: Dubai 2024, May 8, 2024
  • Guest Speaker, NYU Stern School of Business, March 6, 2024
  • Speaker, "Navigating Regulatory Transformation," Frontiers of Digital Finance conference, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Spring 2024
  • Moderator, "Is the region keeping pace with ESG," 6th Arab Lawyers Forum (ALF), Doha, Qatar, February 21, 2024
  • Presenter, "Be In The Know: Updated Anti-Commercial Concealment Law and What it means for businesses," American Chamber of Commerce, Qatar, February 18, 2024
  • Speaker, "Discussing Dubai – Miami Investment Opportunities and What’s on the Horizon," Miami, FL, January 31, 2024
  • Speaker, "Finance in 2030: How AI-Enabled Finance will Drive Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and the New Economy," Frontiers of Digital Finance conference, November 2023
  • Speaker, "The 15th Mena Regulatory Summit," Doha, Qatar, October 4, 2023
  • Panelist, "Appropriate Dispute Resolution in the Region: legal frameworks and digital transformation," Dialogue Through Conflict Foundation's Sleeping Beauty conference, Doha, Qatar, October 2023
  • Panelist, "The 2nd Annual Student-led CSR Conference 2023 Sustainability, Waqf, and Entrepreneurship," The American University in Cairo in Collaboration with Waqfeyat Misr Foundation, July 2023
  • Speaker, Roundtable Discussion to Support the Mission to Enhance Global Health Outcomes Worldwide, Northwell Health, May 2023
  • Speaker, The inaugural Earthna Summit, "Building New Sustainability Pathways for Hot and Arid Environments," Doha, Qatar, March 2023
  • Speaker, "Mediation in Qatar: Qatar's New Mediation Law and the QICDRC Mediation Service," QICDRC Mediation Forum, May 2022
  • Speaker, " Contemporary Literacy on Anticorruption: Building capacities to face global emergencies," UNITAR & ROLACC Global Conference, May 2022
  • Speaker, "COP27 and the Role of the Private Sector: Investing In Real Change," - Cairo, Hafez & Partners and DLA Piper, February 2022
  • Speaker, "A Year in Review: The Legislative and Judicial Developments in 2021," Qatar Lawyers Association, January 2022
  • Speaker, ICC YAF: Current Development of Arbitration in Qatar, July 2021
  • Speaker, Qatar Business Law Forum, December 2020
  • Judge and editorial panel, Qatar Business Law Forum, December 2020
  • Speaker, "Using Public-Private Partnerships to Finance Major Infrastructure Projects: Lessons for the MENA Region - Qatar," Hamad Bin Khalifa University in collaboration with University of Maryland, December 2020 
  • Speaker, Qatar & MENA: 6th Annual International Arbitration & Corporate Crime Summit, April 2020
  • Keynote speaker, Public Private Partnership, Qatar Chamber of Commerce, March 2020 
  • Speaker, Trade Law Forum, Recent Trends In International Commercial Norm-Making and Legal Issues in Cloud Computing Cloud, UNCITRAL, South Korea, September 2018

Memberships And Affiliations

  • Member of the Advisory Board of the Sovreign Impact Initiative
  • Member of IFN Lawyers
  • Member of the Microsoft Invent the Future - Qatar Alliance
  • Member of the Emirates Legal Network
  • Member of the American Foreign Law Association
  • Member of the advisory council of the Hamad Bin Khalifa University College of Law - International Law Principles on Cybersecurity in Critical Infrastructure and Foreign Investment
  • Member of the executive committee of the European Court of Arbitration, Middle East chapter, Italy 
  • Member of the advisory board of the Afghanistan Center for commercial dispute resolution
  • Member of the editorial board of Obiter Law Journal in the United Kingdom
  • Member of the editorial board of the Digital Evidence Law Journal in the United Kingdom
  • Secretary General for the Egyptian Association 
  • Secretary General of the first regional conference on cyber crime
  • Member of the organizing committee for preventing and managing international commercial disputes EC conference in Rome
  • Member of Judges Club since 1997 and member of its cultural committee since 2002
  • Member of the International Association of Penal Law 
  • Member of the Egyptian Association for Cyber Crime, Head of International Co-operation committee  
  • Member of the Egyptian Association for Smart Card Industry and Application EASCI

Connect

Phone

+1 202 848 7933
(US mobile, New York)
+974 550 40126
(Qatar mobile)
+20 101 0827 8270
(Egypt mobile)