Global Justice Foundation Signs Professor Julien Chaisse to Study Gaps and Irregularities in Landmark Dubai Dispute

The Foundation finalizes agreement with Prof. Chaisse, following a dispute involving a Saudi minister, a Big Four firm, and an uninvestigated threatened expert

WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, September 8, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Global Justice Foundation (GJF) today announced it has signed an agreement with Professor Julien Chaisse, Professor and RGC Senior Research Fellow at the City University of Hong Kong School of Law, to lead an independent academic and policy study on court-appointed expert proceedings, conflicts of interest, and investor protection.

The agreement comes as GJF identified a concerning gap between the standards applied in this case, most recently reflected in a supplementary expert report issued in August 2026, and those that govern comparable proceedings in leading financial centers. GJF also has serious concerns about a number of irregularities in how this case's expert proceedings were conducted that, in GJF's view, could reasonably be read as unfair to one party.

Omar Ayesh, founder of Tameer Holding — the company that built Princess Tower, once recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's tallest residential building, and valued at around $5 billion by GIB in 2008 — has been engaged in litigation against his partner, Ahmad Al Rajhi, now Saudi Arabia's Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, since 2009.

During initial proceedings, a court-appointed expert committee issued a preliminary valuation awarding Ayesh approximately $1.8 billion for the unlawful seizure of his rights. Before submitting its final report, however, the Committee Chairman resigned after informing the court that he had been threatened. The resignation was accepted without investigation. Five additional experts subsequently declined appointment.

Due to the circumstances, the matter was ultimately referred to the Ruler's Court of Dubai, the judicial body operating under the authority of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. There, the Ruler's Court expert committee said it lacked the resources to study the case itself and appointed Deloitte to conduct the forensic examination.

Given that Dubai procedure allows evidence to be corrected and resubmitted without consequence, the expert committee allowed Al Rajhi to replace and recreate materials, then accepted them as evidence and reached compensation conclusions, worth billions of dollars, that contradict the underlying record.

The first report issued by the expert committee, based on Deloitte's forensic work, was found by the appeal court judge to fall short of a complete calculation of damages, and the judge instructed the committee to issue a revised report calculating fair compensation for damages and lost profits based on the evidence submitted.

The revised report failed to resolve the judge's request to calculate fair compensation, never quantifying the full extent of damages compensation, and the expert committee treated lost profits as calculated by reversing certain accounting provisions within Deloitte's report, contradicting Deloitte's own account of its work, which states that calculating lost profits was never requested by the Ruler's Court expert committee, and so was never actually performed, leaving billions of dollars worth of compensation unquantified. These irregularities left each unresolved question to be decided in the same party's favor.

Professor Chaisse is a highly respected and leading scholar in international economic law, cited by international tribunals and courts across multiple jurisdictions, and named among Stanford University's top 2% most highly cited scientists worldwide. His BITSel index helps researchers and lawyers evaluate the complex system of international foreign investment rules. Professor Chaisse will retain full control over methodology, analysis, and conclusions. Results will be made public following the standard academic peer-review and publication process.

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Daniel A
Global Justice Foundation
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