Dr. Ehab Elsonbaty, partner in New York, global expert in Sovereign Wealth Funds, and government advice, chairs DLA Piper’s Middle East Initiative. He advises Middle Eastern entities seeking to do business in the Americas and Americas clients seeking to do business in the Middle East. Ehab’s extensive transactional and regulatory experience enables him to provide efficient and effective strategic legal support in a wide variety of business matters. Ehab is a strategic advisor to many boards or directors and advisory boards.
He leads DLA Piper’s Middle East initiative, coordinating the firm’s global platform, multi-practice bilingual capabilities in the US and strong presence on the ground in the Middle East to help the firm deliver seamless cross-border solutions for Middle East entities, among them corporate enterprises, private equity investors, family offices, government entities and sovereign wealth funds, to do business in the Americas, and for Americas companies seeking to do business in the Middle East. The initiative strives to help clients maximize inbound and outbound opportunities arising from this dynamic region, providing comprehensive bilingual legal services and sensitive on-the-ground awareness of each geography in this diverse region.
Ehab’s practice focuses on sovereign wealth funds, government advice & projects and affairs, corporate matters, corporate governance, sustainability, ESG and Sharia Islamic-compliant legal services. Before joining DLA Piper, Ehab served as senior legal counsel and head of corporate governance and government affairs and senior advisor to the general counsel on special projects at the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. There, he was responsible for strategic, corporate, sustainability, ESG and special projects and transactions valued at billions of dollars as well as was a member of several management committees including the Management Investment Committee and the Crisis Management Committee.
Earlier in his career, he served for six years as senior legal advisor to the Amiri Diwan, the office of the Amir of Qatar at the Royal Court. During this time, Ehab was also a member of many policy and legal committees, among them the Permanent Legislative Committee of the Council of Ministers and the Committee for Review of Legislation, as well as a member of the National Committee to Review Commercial Laws of the Ministry of Economy and Trade. Ehab drafted and contributed to several laws and regulations of Qatar, GCC and Middle East. In addition, he served as a public prosecutor in the Egyptian public prosecution, and as a judge in the commercial courts and with Assistant Minister of Justice for more than 15 years, most recently as a judge in Cairo’s Court of Appeal. He is currently admitted to the Bar in Egypt and is a certified and practicing arbitrator and mediator, and a member of the Egyptian Judges Club.
During his service in Egypt, Ehab was seconded to the Ministry of Justice’s Office for International Cooperation and Human Rights, was an advisor to the Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology, a member of the National Committee for Humanitarian Law, a member of the National Committee for Counter-Terrorism and the national committee to control the public elections. He has provided consultancy support to several regional and international organizations, such as UN, UNODC, ITU, UNCTAD, the Council of Europe and the Arab League.
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