Ziad G. El-Khoury has a wide range of experience in corporate, financial, regulatory and civil law matters with particular emphasis on telecommunications, banking and financial, corporate, business and commercial law. Mr. El-Khoury has also handled matters involving bankruptcy, real estate, litigation and alternative dispute resolution. He has represented major corporations and business interests in Lebanon and the Middle East covering a wide range of activities and on behalf of numerous European, American and Middle Eastern clients in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia (KSA), the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Syria.

Prior to joining Squire Sanders, Mr. El-Khoury practiced in two of the leading Lebanese firms in Beirut for seven years before joining a law firm in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2003, where he served as manager of international operations. In 2005, he founded his own firm.

Mr. El-Khoury was appointed by Decree Law of the Lebanese Council of Ministers as a board member of the National Archives Center, a public service supervised by the Lebanese Prime Ministry, where he provides legal and administrative advice.

Mr. El-Khoury is a member of the Beirut Bar Association.

Principais Projetos

• Participating in the legal team carrying out regulatory reform work for the Ministry of Municipalities and Rural Affairs (MOMRA) charged with issuing a new regulation creating 178 new municipal councils and establishing the electoral system for holding the first public elections within the KSA.
• Serving as lead counsel on a major financial institution restructuring project involving the merger of operations from eight money exchange entities into a new bank in Saudi Arabia and conducting a public offering of 50 percent of the authorized capital.
• Representing the Kingdom of Bahrain’s regulatory board, the Economic Development Board (EDB) and Court of the Crown Prince in an effort to reform and modernize the Bahraini Labour Law (primary and secondary legislation in process).
• Leading a private placement initiative in a major health care company with operations around the Middle East in preparation for an anticipated IPO within Saudi Arabia.
• Assisting in the creation of a public joint-stock company with capitalization of
  SR1 billion (US$270 million) to carry out real estate investment activities as well as an anticipated IPO for 25 percent of its initial capital.
• Assisting in creating a cooperative insurance company according to a newly enacted insurance law in the KSA.
• Assisting a Saudi Arabia-based bank in helping to restructure a group of construction companies and close a private placement in preparation of a public offering.
• Assisting in a US$2 billion real estate development project including financing methods, corporate structuring, shareholders’ and investors’ agreements, governance issues, private placement, contractors’ agreements and RPT agreements.
• Representing a major construction company in restructuring one of its divisions in anticipation of a US$213 million private offering and subsequent IPO.
• Representing a holding company that owned and managed 68 restaurants, hotels and resorts.
• Heading a team of lawyers representing an international bank in the acquisition of a family-owned Lebanon-based bank.
• Serving as the general counsel of a family-owned commercial group composed of 21 corporations with diverse business activities.
• Representing a France-based multinational services corporation and a UAE-based petrochemicals corporation with operations in Lebanon.
• Representing the Council for Reconstruction and Development (public service) in expropriation cases and assisting the Lebanese Ministry of Hydraulic and Electric Resources in the rehabilitation and operation of the Tripoli water plant.
• Representing a telecommunication consortium of investors and an international operator in bidding for GSM and data licenses in the KSA (second mobile license) in an effort that resulted in awarding the consortium the data license.
• Representing the telecommunications regulator in the state of Qatar in the issuance of a second mobile and fixed telecommunications license.
• Advising and assisting a client outside the Middle East in a project to construct a telecommunication fiber-optic sub-sea cable system linking various Middle Eastern countries by means of landing stations in 11 jurisdictions.
• Assisting a Saudi Arabia-based telecommunications company in participation in a public auction for 26 percent of the outstanding shares of the third mobile telecommunications company project in Kuwait.
• Assisting a major UAE mobile operator in the acquisition of a regional mobile service provider.