In brief
Bushra Ahmed, Partner at Mishcon de Reya, has successfully acted as counsel for the winning party in a significant Court of Appeal judgment from the DIFC Courts, which clarifies the scope of enforcement powers under the new DIFC Courts Law 2025. The decision confirms that a judgment creditor enforcing a Dubai Court judgment through the DIFC Courts can require a judgment debtor to provide full information about its assets — not just those situated within the DIFC.
What happened?
In the case of Ostin v Oleda DIFC CA-001-2026, the Appellant obtained a judgment from the Dubai Court of First Instance for approximately AED 81.6 million arising from a construction contract dispute. Having registered and recognised that judgment in the DIFC Courts, the Appellant applied for a Part 50 examination order — a procedural tool requiring a representative of the judgment debtor to attend court and answer questions, under oath, about the debtor's assets and means of satisfying the judgment.
The judgment debtor applied to set the order aside. The Enforcement Judge agreed to vary it, limiting the scope of any examination to assets within the DIFC only. The Appellant appealed.
What did the Court of Appeal decide?
The Court of Appeal, sitting before Chief Justice Wayne Martin, Justice Sir Peter Gross and Justice Robert French, allowed the appeal and restored the original order in full.
The Court held that the DIFC Courts' enforcement jurisdiction under the 2025 Courts Law is not territorially confined to assets within the DIFC. Once a Dubai Court judgment is recognised in the DIFC Courts, the full suite of enforcement tools is available — including Part 50 examinations covering assets wherever they are held. A Part 50 order is an information-gathering mechanism, not an act of execution against a specific asset, and its availability is not conditional on first knowing where assets are located.
Why did we say the restriction was wrong?
The Enforcement Judge's approach created a circular problem: a judgment creditor would need to demonstrate that assets existed within the DIFC before using the very tool designed to find out whether any such assets existed. That produces a self-defeating result and one wholly at odds with the purpose of Part 50. The Court agreed and found that the restriction imposed at first instance was based on an unduly narrow reading of the 2025 Courts Law.
Why does this matter?
This decision has two important practical consequences for parties enforcing judgments in the UAE.
The DIFC Courts are a genuinely effective enforcement forum, not just a recognition gateway. Businesses and their legal teams should not assume that DIFC enforcement is only useful where a debtor's assets are already known to be within the DIFC. Following this decision, the DIFC Courts can be used proactively to compel disclosure, map a debtor's full asset position, and build the evidential foundation for recovery across multiple jurisdictions.
For creditors in construction, real estate and other sectors where large sums are in dispute and assets may be dispersed or obscured, Part 50 is now a more powerful first step. Rather than waiting to identify assets before commencing DIFC enforcement, creditors can use the examination process itself to obtain that picture under oath, and with the full authority of the Court behind it.
This is one of the first appellate decisions interpreting the enforcement provisions of the DIFC Courts Law 2025. For companies or organisations considering enforcement action in the UAE, or that have an existing judgment they are struggling to convert into recovery, this decision may open options that were previously thought unavailable.