Withers Builds GCC Advisory Offering For Families, Businesses

3 November 2022

International law firm is teaming up with Tareq Hawasli, a businessman and advisor working in the Gulf, to launch Withers Hakawati, a new initiative to advise families and family-run firms in the Gulf Co-operation Council region.

Withers Hakawati is to be led by Hawasli, a consigliere to prominent GCC families with an extensive track record of helping them achieve their business and personal objectives in the US, the UK and the GCC, Withers said in a statement.

“Families in the GCC region are hugely outward-looking and are looking to receive best-in-class advice and, at the very least, fair treatment from commercial or financial partners in other regions of the world,” Hawasli said.

Hawasli works as a consultant within Withers and will work with lawyers across Withers' international network, particularly with London-based partners Chris Groves and Stephen Nerland.

“Our clients rely on us to address all of their legal needs around the world, and our lawyers frequently act as close and long-term advisors to them, their families and their businesses,” he said.

Justine Markovitz, Withers' chairperson, said. “Withers Hakawati is a natural extension of this, focusing particularly on clients from the GCC region. However, instead of applying the generic approach of many US and UK-based law firms, we will offer the assistance of advisors who share the cultural background of GCC families and businesses and who put their interests first.”

Hawasli co-founded Darin Partners, a full-service real estate investment and asset management company named after the 1915 Darin Pact of mutual alignment between Britain and the Abdulaziz Al Saud (Ibn Saud) which gave international recognition to Saudi Arabia.

His other partnership interests include US tech firm Flybridge Capital Partners, sports and entertainment, and he has served on the board of Sheffield United football club. Hawasli has an MBA from London Business School, an OPM from Harvard Business School, has studied at the University of Georgia where he is a brother of Alpha Tau Omega, and undertook the Management Acceleration Program at INSEAD.