Leila Mustafa

Leila Mustafa is a Senior Associate and a banking and finance solicitor qualified in England & Wales. Her primary practice area is Banking and Finance Law, with extensive experience advising financial institutions on complex financing transactions, commercial advisory matters and product development.

Prior to joining the firm, she was a banking and finance associate at a leading London law firm. Since joining Al Tamimi & Company, she has advised on a wide range of transactions across the Middle East, acting for governments, sponsors and consortiums, project finance lenders and borrowers.

Her experience includes syndicated lending for asset finance, acquisition finance and project finance (using both conventional and Islamic structures), as well as bilateral lending, trade finance and refinancing transactions.

Her recent experience includes advising the sponsors in the multi-fuel conventional waste-to-energy plant in Sharjah; acting as sponsors' lead local counsel in respect of the acquisition of ADNOC Refining's waste management assets; and advising the sponsors on the Kom Ombo 200 MW PV project in Kom Ombo, Egypt.

She has also acted on behalf of several major UAE banks in preparing their Islamic finance agreements and advising on Sharia-compliant structures; represented lenders as lead local counsel in providing financing to petroleum companies; and advised on loans for the acquisition, construction, development and refurbishment of real estate assets.

Other matters include acting on behalf of a conglomerate in the launch of a co-branded credit card, preparing heads of terms for several local UAE banks and network providers including Visa and Mastercard, and drafting the programme agreement, partnership agreement and service level agreement. She has also advised lenders on local security packages, including onshore, ADGM, DIFC and free zone security, and dealt with notarisation and registration of security agreements including share pledges, account pledges and receivable agreements.

She holds an LPC and LLM from The University of Law (2017) and an LLB from St Mary's University Twickenham (2016). She was admitted as a Solicitor in England & Wales in 2019 and speaks Arabic and English.