The future of Dubai-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital hangs in the balance as the firm faces potential insolvency after being liquidated by its lenders, The Block reported. According to well-placed sources, the investment firm — which counts the likes of options exchange Deribit and financial services firm BlockFi among its venture bets — is in the process of figuring out how to repay lenders and other counter-parties after it was liquidated by top tier lending firms in the space.
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United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates will introduce a form of unemployment insurance, the cabinet said on Monday, the latest reform by the Gulf country as it strives to attract talent and investment amid increasing regional economic competition, Reuters reported. Insured workers would receive some money for a limited time period if made unemployed, UAE Prime Minister and Vice-President Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who is also the ruler of trade hub Dubai, said on Twitter, citing a cabinet decision.
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Dubai-owned P&O Ferries on Thursday suspended its passenger and freight ships but denied the group was heading into bankruptcy, Times of Malta reported. P&O Ferries operates four routes serving Britain, France, Ireland and the Netherlands. “P&O Ferries is not going into liquidation,” the company owned by DP World said in a statement. “We have asked all ships to come alongside (return to dock), in preparation for a company announcement.
It seemed a facetious question, one intended to provoke the star witness: “Do you think you are good at lying?” But it is the crucial issue at the center of what is likely to be the only trial on U.S. soil in one of the largest international kleptocracy cases in history, the looting of billions of dollars from the people of Malaysia, the New York Times reported.
India and the United Arab Emirates signed a broad trade and investment pact on Friday that will eventually cut all tariffs on each other's goods and aims to increase annual trade between the two nations to $100 billion within five years, Reuters reported. The virtual signing ceremony marks the first trade deal sealed by the Gulf state since it began pursuing such pacts last September in a bid to strengthen its status as a business hub.
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The United Arab Emirates and Turkey agreed to a currency swap equivalent to nearly $5 billion that reinforces an economic partnership between two Middle Eastern rivals and provides Ankara with a badly needed infusion of foreign funds, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal, announced Wednesday, deepens the detente between Turkey and the U.A.E., powers that until recently were on opposite sides of a Middle Eastern cold war and remain at odds over conflicts in the region.
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The multibillion-dollar world’s fair in Dubai has warned that some venues on site may shut down as coronavirus cases rapidly rise in the United Arab Emirates, the Associated Press reported. Dubai’s Expo 2020 said that virus outbreaks among staff may force some parts of the fair to “close temporarily for deep cleaning and sanitization,” without elaborating on the scope or the location of the infections. The UAE’s daily virus caseload has skyrocketed by a multiple of 37 in just the last three weeks after the arrival of the omicron variant.
KPMG LLP was sued for at least $600 million over its role in the insolvency of Dubai private-equity firm Abraaj Group, the latest in a string of complaints of sloppy auditing made against the Big Four firm, Bloomberg News reported. The claimants, two units of Abraaj now in liquidation, allege that KPMG accountants “failed to maintain independence and an appropriate attitude of professional skepticism,” and breached their duty of care when auditing the private-equity firm, according to court documents filed in Dubai on Nov. 3.
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A United Arab Emirates prosecutor has ordered the detention of the chairman of Dubai-based Union Properties PJSC pending an investigation into alleged financial violations at one of the country’s biggest developers, Bloomberg News reported. Khalifa Al Hammadi’s detention was requested by the Federal Public Funds Prosecution and “the case is still under investigation,” the company said in a stock market disclosure, citing a letter from the authorities. A spokesman for Union Properties declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg on Tuesday.
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Dubai’s key tourism sector is unlikely to rebound for at least a year, according to S&P Global Ratings, Bloomberg News reported. While the city will witness a modest recovery this year helped by one of the world’s highest vaccination rates, “weak international tourism is likely to drag on the economy until late 2022 at the earliest,” Ratings Credit Analyst Trevor Cullinan said on Tuesday.
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