Clyde & Co is first to enter alliance with Baghdad firm

POST-WAR MARKET: Iraqi base to service UK, European clients

City firm Clyde & Co was the first to break into the post-war legal market in Iraq last week with the announcement that it has cut a deal with Baghdad-based Numan Shakir Numan.

Clydes entered an exclusive co-operation agreement with Numans, whose senior and sole name principal - only sole principal firms are permitted in Iraq - is a former president of the Iraqi Bar Association during the reign of Saddam Hussein.

Paul Turner, an international trade disputes partner, said the relationship would enable Clydes to service UK and Europe-based trade, insurance and construction clients in Iraq.

He added that the firm has already been doing trade mark work for clients in Iraq.

No Clyde & Co staff will be based in Baghdad, though lawyers will travel between the offices frequently.

Links between the two firms were forged by Mr Turner, who met Mr Numan while visiting Iraq on business last year.

Clydes has one Iraqi-qualified lawyer - Zainab Al-Qirnawi - working in the firm's London office, and an office in Dubai with more than 40 lawyers.

Mr Turner said that interest from UK and European clients related to reconstruction work 'in the broadest sense, including humanitarian work'.

He added: 'There is a good, healthy private enterprise and a number of strong local companies in Iraq.

Once law and order has been restored there could be a move in the long term from the public side to privatisation.'

Mr Turner said Mr Numan had never acted for anyone in the former Iraqi government and was 'not in any way stained' by the old regime.

Martin Amison, the head of international at City firm Trowers & Hamlins - which has more offices spread throughout the Middle East than any other UK law firm - said the practice was positioning itself with its extensive Middle Eastern network of clients and hoped to work in Iraq.

He said: 'It's very early days yet.

It's not a safe place...

I'm not sure that there's that much legal work at the moment, but there will be in due course.'

Jeremy Fleming