After Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) – which introduced its own foundation regime on the 16th of August 2017 – the DIFC is the second common law jurisdiction within the UAE to extend its structuring and legacy planning offering with the adaption of the civil law based foundation regime.
The DIFC foundation regime is the result of a comprehensive review of the best practices, models and principles of existing foundation regimes of both common law and civil law backgrounds – and particularly financial centers around the world. In line with the legal environment of the DIFC, the Foundations Law is primarily based on the principle of the common law foundations and it is enhanced with selected elements of the Liechtenstein foundations model, the Dutch Stichting Administratienkantoor regime (“STAK”) and other features that are unique to the DIFC foundation.
For an overview of the DIFC foundations’ key features, read the article here – as published in STEP Journal/April 2018.
For a comparative overview of the AGDM and DIFC foundation regimes with similar offerings available internationally