Common Law, Unfamiliar Settings: Hong Kong, the UAE and Establishing Legal Trust in Financial Centres

Hong Kong and the UAE share an unusual feature: each accommodates common law institutions within a state whose wider legal tradition is different. Hong Kong inherited its common law system and preserved it under “one country, two systems”; the UAE deliberately imported common law, establishing legally autonomous financial centres within a predominantly civil law federation.

Drawing on the experience of Hong Kong, this talk considers the UAE’s approach to building financial centres trusted by international capital – through common law courts, international judges and credible regulation operating within a larger, plural legal order.

It offers comparative reflections on what these two experiences – one of inheriting common law and the other of importing and institutionalising it – suggest about the role of legal institutions in creating and sustaining trust in international financial centres.

About the speaker:
Hussein Baxter is a doctoral researcher at City Law School, London, and a senior M&A lawyer specialising in high-value cross-border transactions and private equity in the Middle East. His research examines legal transplantation, financial free zones and the role of legal institutions in attracting international capital in the Gulf, drawing on his experience advising on complex transactions across the region. Alongside his research and practice, he teaches corporate law, M&A and private equity on MBA and law programmes at leading international universities.

Chair:
Giuliano Castellano, Director of AIIFL, and Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong