Narayan Iyer, Managing Partner (B.Sc., LLB, ACS, AICWA, MBA, DIEM, LIII)

Focus Middle East Consultants has been founded by Narayan Iyer, a legal professional with more than 20 years legal experience in various advisory and other capacities, and Ms. Vijaya, an HR professional with more than 15 years experience in running and managing her own businesses. Both these professionals have served ample time in both in Asia and the Middle East.

Narayan has been in the Middle East since 2002. He started his career with multidisciplinary functions of costing and finance/treasury, before he fully moved onto legal and corporate secretarial practice in 1997. He served with one of the leading business houses in India, before he moved on to join the Landmark group in 2002 in their legal in house role. The Landmark group needs no introduction in the Middle East, and inarguably counts among the top 5 business houses in the Middle East region. After some years as in house, Narayan then moved on to work with a British rooted law law firm operating out of the United Arab Emirates. The economic downturn uprooted most service professionals, but in case of Narayan, it showed him the opportunity to start up his own consultancy firm, and that literally, signified the birth of Focus Middle East Consultants FZ LLC.

Vijaya headed her own consultancy firm in Mumbai, till she moved on to the Middle East in 2002. She did stints with Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank, before her stint with Focus Middle East FZ LLC. At Focus, she heads the Admin and the HR departments, and is Partner-Admin and HR.

Below is the list of just some of the things that Focus Middle East Handles.

Offshore company incorporation:

Focus Middle East specializes in company set-ups in several offshore jurisdictions that strategically enable the client to concentrate on his business, without bothering about the cumbersome taxation and paperwork formalities. Most offshore corporate setup companies do not give relevant advice about why a particular offshore jurisdiction is good or not good for the client, in this respect Focus Middle East has decades of experience in ‘picking and choosing’ the right offshore jurisdiction, with the client, in order to ensure that the client gets a ‘good deal’, both short term and long term.  Once the company is formed, Focus Middle East Consultants will be happy to provide ‘hand-holding’ services to the Client, in taking the Client through the first few years, because company formation is not the end of the world, and we do understand and appreciate how tough it will be if the Client is left alone to handle the paperwork and other formalities all by itself. We do BVI companies, Isle of Mann  companies, RAK, JAFZA companies, Mauritius companies, Cyprus companies to name but a few.

Local and free zone company incorporation:

Focus Middle East Consultants is extremely good at company formation. We clarify upfront that there is no ‘rocket science’ associated with company formation, however, long years of company formation, and practical experience does help! Besides its always good to outsource the work to a legal consultancy firm of our stature so that valuable client time is saved in the process. Once you hand us the relevant papers, which again we will clearly advise you on (i.e what to attest, where to attest it from, and how much it will cost you approximately), we then take over the entire application process, till the time we handover the trade/commercial/professional licence to you. After that, we can even handle your visa processing formalities at a nominal fee. Focus Middle East Consultants is very good at both local and free zone company incorporation.

Drafting of contracts, MoU’s and every other shade and hue of agreements, by whatever name called!

The Middle East is a dynamic beehive of drafting agreements. We at Focus Middle East Consultants are right in the middle of this dynamism, since we handle reviewing and drafting of agreements day and night! Be it a 2-pager or a 40-pager, we put in the same amount of sincerity and ‘focus’ on each of our drafting/reviewing, and this drafting/reviewing is ‘Middle East style’, which means that we appreciate the fact that these agreements will be read in Arabic, while they are being drafted in English, thus we keep cultural sensitivities in mind all the while. Its easy for a legal consultancy firm to go overboard in trying to prove ‘just how smart they are’ while drafting agreements, and for us, its always about understanding the client’s business and walking the extra mile with the client, to understand client requirements for drafting/reviewing.

Labor relations, employee disputes, and visa processing formalities:

Focus Middle East Consultants from the very beginning appreciates the fact that while visa processing formalities thanks to the user friendly methodologies adopted in the Middle East are not ‘rocket science’, yet they have to be dealt with carefully and do require time and sensitivity. We are very adept at this, and mature with every passing ‘matter handled’ because obviously, this field is a very dynamic one, and the laws keep getting altered for client benefit all the while. Coming to labor relations and employee disputes, Focus Middle East Consultants has considerable experience in these matters both in onshore as well as Free zone related employee disputes, which while they will be dealt with as per the applicable Federal laws of the land, will still have to be dealt with, through separate mechanisms. Thanks to our pacifist approach, we have ensured that most of these disputes get negotiated between the employer and the employee before they end up in court, but if a certain labor matter is fated to go to Court, then we make sure that we will leave no stone unturned in trying to win the case in favor of our client, (be it the employee or the employer!)

Due diligence and legal health checks:

The days of lawyers being perceived as bad people, who have to be approached only for negative matters clearly went out decades ago! Today, the lawyer and by extension, the legal consultancy firm, are as important, if not more, than the accountant, and this is so true in the Middle East context. Thus, Focus Middle East plays a very important role in companies even when the going is good. Take for example a mid-sized family concern that has successfully completed 5 years in UAE, or Bahrain. This is the correct time for Focus Middle East Consultants to step in and do a health check, the same way as a doctor would do a routine health check on a perfectly healthy middle aged executive. The idea is preventive maintenance, not breakdown maintenance. We will ‘diagnose’ the problems, and suggest ‘preventive remedies’ before its ‘too late’, the same way as a doctor would prescribe medicines for say excess cholesterol. To give an example, suppose a 5 year old company’s activities are checked by us in the course of due diligence/legal health check, and we find a mismatch between the activities ‘done’ and the activities ‘supposed to be done’, we would then recommend the correct activities as per the valid economic classification rules in vogue. We specialize in detecting concerns that are in the typical blind spot of companies, and our client list includes quite a lot of ‘thankful and relieved clients’ on this score.

Business and Management consultancy:

Every businessman knows how to run his business best, and yet, every businessman can do with proper management and business advice. Most businessmen in the Middle East prefer the ‘outside healing touch’ whereby a neutral management consultancy firm, such as Focus Middle East Consultants comes in and offers strategic advice on certain crucial business parameters, such as the futuristic business plan, financial due diligence and HR and corporate staffing solutions. Obviously businesses encounter ‘ethnic difficulties’ which are not often found in ‘Western management textbooks’ and hence we also think ethnically to counter these localized problems. We specialize in strategic business/management consultancy offerings and have in the recent past as well, extensively worked with our clients on their business and management issues.

Corporate succession planning and wills:

We make wills for individuals and companies. Yes, by wills for companies, we mean corporate succession planning. Every entity, be it an individual or a corporate needs to plan for its future. We call this in common language as ‘will preparation’. We excel at preparing wills for individuals and corporates. We sit down with the relevant ‘decision makers’ and evaluate the whole investment and asset-liability profile, combined with the ‘nationality’ of the entity for whom we are making the will, and then plan the ‘will’. We have been extremely successful at combining will preparation with offshore company formation, and use the two synergistically, when the client prefers it that way.

Debt recovery mechanisms and legal notices:

Debt recovery in the Middle East is very different in profile and practical applicability from say Asian debt recovery. For example, in the UAE, the local Police could play a huge role, depending upon certain parameters, and of course the local courts do count at a later stage. Having said that, we have formulated strategic debt recovery mechanisms that include the sending of legal debt recovery notices, and our track record of debt recovery has been exemplary in the recent past.

Talking of legal notices, we also issue legal notices for various other reasons, including logistics and real estate related issues. We believe that the entire ballgame of the success or failure of a legal notice depends upon the wording, and over the years we have come up with some very strategic wording that puts the offender in his/her/its right place!

Attestation services:

Since we are a duly licensed legal consultancy firm operating from the United Arab Emirates, we are licenced to carry out all forms of attestation requirements for and on behalf of clients at a nominal fee.

Company secretarial services:

We are licensed to conduct board meetings, prepare minutes of meetings/board meetings and shareholder meeting notices, update records and in general, carry out all forms of corporate secretarial services. The Middle East is marching along side Europe, Asia and America in matters of “corporate governance”. Thus maintenance of appropriate corporate secretarial records and conduct of properly spaced out board and share holder meetings is a very crucial aspect for Middle East companies. Since this sensitive task does not require a full time employee, we then can step in and handle these company secretarial services for and on behalf of our clients.

Negotiations:

We are often called upon to front end crucial negotiations, discussions, meetings (by whatever name called!) for and on behalf of our clients. Having a lawyer on your side during crucial meetings, often puts the fear of the Good Lord in the mind of the opposite party! We also often end up acting as a legal advisor for the client even after these small meetings get over.

Retainerships:

Currently, Focus Middle East Consultants acts as the retainer for several individuals, companies and groups. We charge a fixed fee per month for finite time periods of say a quarter, six months or in some cases, a year. Retainership is a very good mechanism for individuals and companies who have ongoing legal work, and yet at the same time, do not find it worthwhile to appoint a full time legal advisor as their employee.

Intellectual property protections (including trademark registration):

The Middle East in general has close to full compliance for intellectual property rights, including trademark protection. And as yet, the Middle East is surrounded by countries whose nationals visit the Middle East all the time, thus giving rise to Intellectual property piracy. Hence, trademark and copyright protection is very important on an ongoing basis for start up as well as well established corporates in the region. As in every other part of the world, the local rules and regulations accord a lot of respect to a registered trademark/copyright as compared to an unregistered one, and that is where our extensive ‘local’ experience counts and comes in handy. A successful trademark law firm is one which can not only register what the client wants it to, but can also guide and educate the client on the proper classes to be registered in. And we are proficient at both!