Today we visited the Dubai Courts Al Barsha branch to sign the memorandum of agreement (MOA) with our business partner. The MOA is required by law and sets out the legal ownership arrangements and details the responsibilities and powers of the managing partner.

Having prepared all the required documents and asked our partner to drive up from Abu Dhabi, we were still a bit nervous as you never know what extra documentation you may need. We had a folder with every document that we’d accumulated during the business setup stages so far but as we got to the counter, we were asked for the trade name registration certificate. As we’d changed the business category a few weeks earlier (see previous business setup post) we did not receive a new trade name registration certificate. After a few minutes of nervous discussion, our partner managed to show that we had the receipt for the name registration and that all our other paperwork was in order. Luckily we were allowed to continue with the MOA signing and registration process with the process very efficient and the staff extremely helpful.

Now the next step was to complete the lease for our warehouse and take all the paperwork back to the DED for final approval.