Rima is one of the passionate senior associates at the Corporate Department in Al Ghazzawi & Partners’ Jeddah office. Prior to joining AlGhazzawi & Partners, Rima started her career with eminent law firms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including Ahmed Zaki Yamani Law Firm, where she focused on drafting, advising on, as well as negotiating local and international commercial contracts and agreements, and moreover, advising and forming local and foreign companies in different sectors, drafting civil contracts related to real estate and founding owners’ associations, and labor contracts.

Rima has strong experience in her areas of practice, which means that she can give feasible and strategic advice to help clients achieve their goals and minimize the risk. Her extensive experience provides a sense of security and assurance to the clients that they are in the hands of a highly-skilled legal advisor who will protect their interests without a backward step. Rima has earned a name as a highly-skilled legal advisor, with a single-minded dedication to her clients and a pragmatic, hassle-free approach to meeting their needs. Rima ensures her clients get more than just a legal advisor, she employs her life skills and business expertise, as well as her legal discernment, to provide her clients with the best chance of the best result.

Rima has been practicing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for almost two decades and is currently advising multinational public and private legal entities from North America, Europe, South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Her areas of practice include:

• Corporate/merger & acquisition: advising buyers and sellers on cross-border public and private merging, demerging, buying and selling of companies and their assets, formation and restructuring of companies and with joint ventures and strategic alliances, in broad range of industries; conduct legal due diligence to ascertain the financial performance of the company, the status of its assets, whether there are any outstanding debts or legal claims that could prove problematic, and whether there are any environmental, intellectual property or antitrust liabilities that could affect the value of the target going forward; negotiate and draft agreements with different parties; gather all parties for the completion of the transaction, ensuring all assets have been properly covered by written documents that are duly executed; finalize all post-completion registrations and procedures;
• Competition/antitrust: advising on the application of competition/antitrust laws and regulations and clearance for acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures;
• Public-private partnerships: advising on and draft long-term public private partnership agreements between the public and private sector that are used to design, finance, construct and operate large government infrastructure projects, form a ‘special purpose vehicle’ (SPV) established to build, own and operate the end result of projects;
• Administrative Law/government tenders and procurement: advising on infrastructure, construction, engineering and general procurement tenders documents and contracts with government authorities;
• Construction: advising on and draft infrastructure, construction, engineering and general procurement contracts;
• Property/real estate: advising on and draft sales, purchases and leases of land and buildings and advise on the structure of deals; advise clients on their responsibilities in leasehold relationships and on how to take action if problems arise;
• Employment: advising on an employee and employer rights and obligations, contentious labor disciplinary and grievance matters within individual employment relationships, remuneration, employer negligence and culpability, and employee liability resulting in employment claims or negotiating a settlement and on non-contentious employment matters, including employment contracts and policies, and providing guidance on restructuring and termination programs;
• Environment, health & safety: advising on the water or air pollution, waste disposal, emission levels, health and safety, and potential environmental consequences of corporate, property and projects transactions, damage limitation and pre-emptive measures, compliance and regulatory issues to help clients operate within regulatory boundaries and avoid investigation or prosecution;
• Commercial: advising on and draft wide range of commercial agreements and standard forms related to the client’s business and the client’s protection against liability for claims;
• Intellectual property: advising on and draft commercial agreements between owners of IP rights and those who want to use the protected IP rights, to either transfer ownership or grant a licence for use