DFSA

The Dubai Financial Services Authority is the regulator of the DIFC, Dubai’s financial free zone. It authorises the firms and individuals that carry on financial activity in or from the DIFC, then supervises their compliance with the applicable laws and rules and sanctions breaches. Its founding statute is the Regulatory Law of 2004 (DIFC Law No. 1 of 2004). It administers the Markets Law of 2012 and the Collective Investment Law of 2010, which governs funds domiciled in the DIFC. Its remit covers asset management, banking and credit, investment funds, Islamic finance, insurance and capital markets. It supervises anti-money laundering in the zone. For a European company seeking private debt, the DFSA comes into play when the lender is a DIFC credit fund. Since 1 June 2022, this type of fund has had its own regime: the DFSA authorises the manager, investors are limited to Professional Clients, the fund’s borrowing is capped at 10% of its net asset value and its life is ten years at most. On 7 July 2026, the DFSA published Consultation Paper 173, which proposes to relax this regime; comments were due by 7 September 2026. Before signing, the borrower checks the manager’s DFSA authorisation and the version of the rules that applies to the fund at the date of the agreement.

A French logistics company with €60m of EBITDA is negotiating a €150m loan with a credit fund domiciled in the DIFC. The fund limits its exposure to any single group to 25% of its net assets: it needs at least €600m of net assets to hold the loan alone. The finance director checks the manager’s DFSA authorisation and the fund’s remaining life, which must cover the six years of the loan’s maturity.

• The DFSA authorisation of the lending fund’s manager
• The cap of 25% of the fund’s net assets on any single borrower or group
• The fund’s life, limited to ten years, compared with the loan maturity
• The rules adopted following Consultation Paper 173 of July 2026