Nakheel, the Dubai government-owned developer that restructured $16 billion of debt three years ago after being hit by a sharp drop in local real estate prices, is now aiming to pay back much of those borrowings early and eventually become debt-free as property prices climb again, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported. The company will pre-pay 4 billion U.A.E. dirhams ($1.09 billion) of bank loans originally set to mature next September, chairman Ali Rashid Lootah said on Saturday.

The Index tower on Dubai’s answer to Wall Street has 23 floors of empty offices out of the 25 it opened in 2011, Bloomberg News reported today. The office space in the Index on Sheikh Zayed Road was sold in pieces to nine different investors under a system known as strata title, according to developer Union Properties PJSC, meaning potential tenants face the prospect of having multiple landlords.

An Icelandic court sentenced four former Kaupthing bankers to jail yesterday for market abuses related to a large stake taken in the bank by a Qatari sheikh just before it went under in late 2008, Reuters reported yesterday. Weeks before the country's top three banks collapsed under huge debts as the global credit crunch struck, Kaupthing announced that Sheikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa Bin Hamad al Thani had bought 5 percent of its shares in a confidence-boosting move. A parliamentary commission later said that the shares had been bought with a loan from Kaupthing itself.

When liquidators closed the books on the Bank of Credit and Commerce International case in May, a 21-year-old scandal that shook the global financial system and ensnared arms dealers, dictators and even the CIA appeared to be over. Earlier this month, however, creditors of the failed bank got the go-ahead from a judge in Luxembourg to partially reopen the case and make one last attempt to collect $326 million from Saudi Arabia, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported.

Iran's national gas company said it is facing collapse, the latest sign of deepening economic distress from international sanctions as Tehran seeks urgent relief in talks with world powers, The Wall Street Journal reported. The chief executive officer of state-owned National Iranian Gas Company, Hamid Reza Araghi, said over the weekend that the company has declared bankruptcy, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency. The report said the company had a debt of 100 trillion rials, or about $4 billion. The company tried to backtrack on the comments Monday.

New caps on mortgage lending will soon come into force in the United Arab Emirates, part of a long-running effort by the country’s central bank to keep real estate markets in check and avoid a debt-fueled bubble. And not everybody’s happy, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported. While the limits apply to all of the U.A.E.’s banks, they’re seen as largely aimed at Dubai, where a recent Standard Chartered report estimated apartment prices went up by about 38% year-on-year in October.

Citigroup and International Bank of Qatar are holding up negotiations to restructure $4.5 billion in debt of Abu Dhabi conglomerate Al Jaber Group, further complicating drawn-out talks, sources said, Gulf Daily News reported. Al Jaber is one of the most prominent private sector firms in Abu Dhabi, which has generally suffered fewer corporate problems than neighbouring Dubai since the financial crisis. With operations in construction, aviation and retail, Al Jaber set up a five-bank creditor committee in 2011 to negotiate a restructuring.

Arcapita, a private equity and investment company based in Bahrain, has emerged from bankruptcy protection in the U.S. this week, concluding a reorganization that analysts say may represent the first true post-financial-crisis debt restructuring by an Arab Gulf company, The Wall Street Journal Middle East Real Time blog reported. The bankruptcy plan approved by a U.S. court envisions Arcapita selling down its portfolio of assets over five years to repay creditors, and then effectively going out of business.

Kuwait's Global Investment House said on Wednesday that it had completed a $1.7 billion restructuring plan, the second at the firm since the global financial crisis, Reuters reported. Under the plan, Global separated its core fee business from other parts of the company which were spun off into special purpose vehicles (SPV). Global was one of several Kuwaiti investment firms hit hard by the crisis. It used short-term debt to invest heavily in local real estate and stocks whose values later slumped. Global created two SPVs under the plan.

Banks in the United Arab Emirates are seeking five years to comply with a central bank regulation to limit their exposure to government entities in the second-biggest Arab economy, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The banks are also seeking to exclude marketable bonds and sukuks from the proposal, according to the U.A.E. Banks Federation. The central bank said in April 2012 that banks must not lend more than 100 percent of their capital to local governments and the same amount to government-related entities to help reduce risk, and must comply with the new regulations by Sept. 30, 2012.