UAE Court Expert: Court-Appointed Accounting Expert

A court-accredited accounting expert in Dubai is an expert registered on the roster of experts whom the court appoints to examine the disputed accounting and financial questions in a case and to submit a reasoned report setting out the task, the documents examined, the technical analysis and the findings. The expert works for the court, not for either party.

At federal level, Article 4(1) of Federal Decree-Law 21 of 2022 requires experts to be on the roster, and Article 3 of the same decree-law allows local judicial authorities and arbitration centres to run their own expert regimes. Dubai runs its own regime under Dubai Law No. 13 of 2020 on the regulation of expert work before judicial authorities.

The steps below follow the Evidence Law, Federal Decree-Law 35 of 2022.

Registration and conduct are governed by Federal Decree-Law 21 of 2022 on the profession of experts before judicial authorities. Each provision below is from that decree-law.

Registration before the Dubai Courts can be checked on the Dubai Courts experts register. Registration at federal level can be checked through the Ministry of Justice experts search. Abdulrahman AlNuaimi's numbers, as stated on this site, are Dubai Courts 235, Abu Dhabi Judicial Department 198, Ministry of Justice 651 and Ministry of Economy auditor licence 948. The Dubai Courts numbers of AABDxb's three other registered accounting experts are 315 (Liyali Bader Alsuwaidi), 319 (Abdalla Khalfan Almheiri, also Ministry of Justice 800) and 321 (Mohamed Abdulrahman AlShamsi).

The court may appoint one or more experts under the Evidence Law, Federal Decree-Law 35 of 2022, Article 109. The appointment decision is where the engagement is defined: under Article 111 of the Evidence Law it states the task, the expert's powers and the deadline, and those three lines govern everything that follows. An expert who works outside the stated task, however useful the extra work appears, produces material the court did not ask for.

Article 112 of the Evidence Law deals with the deposit on account of fees and who bears it. Article 113 of the Evidence Law requires the expert to disclose any relationship or interest, and failure to disclose means removal. Where a party considers the expert disqualified, Article 114 of the Evidence Law sets the route: a motion to the court, a reply from the expert within two business days, and a decision by the court within three business days, which is final.

The useful moment for a party is early. Reading the appointment decision closely, and raising a scope or disclosure point at the start, tends to be more effective than raising the same point once a report has been filed.

Article 117 of the Evidence Law sets out what the report must contain: the task, the parties' statements, the documents, the technical analysis, and reasoned findings, with any dissent recorded. That list is also the order in which a reader tests a report. A finding with no visible reasoning behind it invites the question of how it was reached, and that question is usually put by the other side rather than by the court.

During the work the expert may hear the litigants and request books, records and documents under Article 115 of the Evidence Law, and a refusal is referred to the court under Article 116. A report that shows what was requested, what was produced and what was not is easier for a court to weigh than one that presents a conclusion without that history.

For how a court reads and uses a report once it is on the file, see the article on how expert reports are used in UAE courts.

Under Article 119(2) of the Evidence Law, the initial report goes to the parties, who have at least three business days to comment, and the expert replies within five, before the final report is filed with the case management office. That window is short, and it is the point at which a factual correction is cheapest to make.

Comments that identify a document the expert did not have, or an arithmetic step that does not follow, tend to change a report. Comments that restate the party's case tend not to. Under Article 119(3) of the Evidence Law, objections raised after the report is filed are considered only where they are novel, so a point held back for the hearing may not be heard at all.

Once the report is on the file the court has options under Article 121 of the Evidence Law: it may question the expert, let the parties discuss him, order the report completed or corrected, or appoint another expert. Which of those follows depends more on whether an objection identifies a specific defect than on how forcefully it is put.

The report does not bind the court. Under Article 122(2) of the Evidence Law the expert's opinion is not binding on the court, and a court that departs from it must give reasons. That cuts both ways: a party relying on a favourable report is relying on the court's assessment of it, and a party facing an unfavourable one is not without a route. In either case the practical work is the same: identify the defect precisely, in writing, inside the window the court allows.

A court-appointed expert works to a task set by the court and reports to the court. A party-appointed expert is instructed by one side and reports to it, and the difference in who sets the question is the difference in how the two documents are read. Both can be useful and they are not substitutes for one another. Under Article 4(1) of Federal Decree-Law 21 of 2022 experts must be on the roster, and under Article 4(2) of the same decree-law the parties may agree an unregistered expert with the court's approval. For the distinction in more detail, see what a court-appointed accounting expert is.

The Evidence Law regime described above governs onshore UAE proceedings. The DIFC and ADGM courts operate under their own published rules, and expert evidence there follows those rules rather than the federal Evidence Law. Work prepared for one forum is not automatically in the right form for the other, so the forum is better settled before the report is drafted than after.

The registration position also differs. Under Article 3 of Federal Decree-Law 21 of 2022, local judicial authorities and arbitration centres may run their own expert regimes, so being on the Ministry roster maintained by specialty under Article 5 of the same decree-law does not by itself answer whether a given forum will accept a given expert. In arbitration, a tribunal may appoint its own expert under Federal Law 6 of 2018, Article 34.