Corporate, Contracts & Transactions
Corporate and contracts lawyer in Riyadh: from formation to the deal
Legal services for companies and contracts in Riyadh: company formation, shareholders' agreements, governance, and drafting and reviewing commercial contracts that work in practice.
Companies & governance
Corporate lawyer in Riyadh for business, governance and partner disputes
Many corporate problems start long before a dispute appears: unclear authority, a partnership agreement that does not reflect reality, an undocumented management decision, unregulated funding, or a partner's exit for which no mechanism was ever built. That is why we treat company law as a decision structure, not just formation documents.
When does a company need this work?
When forming a new entity, bringing in a partner or investor, changing ownership percentages, allocating authority, expanding into a new activity, changing management, restructuring a group, or when a disagreement arises over management, profits, shares, access to information, or decisions of the partners or the board.
What do we review?
We start with the articles of association or constitutional documents, partners' agreements if any, the ownership structure, resolutions, delegations, funding, key contracts, and the correspondence that shows how the company is actually run. The aim is to find the gap between the paper and the reality before it becomes liability or a dispute.
Partners' agreements
Their job is to regulate what the statutory documents alone may not cover: the decision-making mechanism, reserved matters, additional funding, profit distribution, restrictions on transfers, pre-emption rights, exit, deadlock, non-competition, confidentiality and dispute resolution.
When a dispute arises
We separate ownership disputes, management disputes and financial-rights disputes, because each path needs different evidence and different claims. The goal may be to protect a decision, to void one, to compel the other side to act, to recover money, to give a partner access to information, to negotiate an exit, or to move to litigation.
What do you receive?
Depending on scope: a legal position memorandum, an authority map, a partners' agreement, shareholder or board resolutions, a restructuring plan, a negotiation memorandum, a legal notice, or a full dispute strategy.
Next step
If you have a new formation, a restructuring, a partners' agreement or a dispute inside the company, we can start by reviewing the core documents and identifying the decision points before choosing a path.
Commercial contracts
Drafting and reviewing commercial contracts, tied to performance
A good contract does not only describe the deal. It sets out what happens when circumstances change, performance is late, the parties read a term differently, or one of them wants out. So we do not treat drafting as a set of standard clauses, but as translating the deal into obligations, controls and mechanisms that can actually be operated.
Before drafting
We identify the parties, the commercial purpose, the scope of work, the consideration, the periods, the assumptions, the approvals, and the scenarios the client wants protected. This stage prevents a contract that is elegant in language but commercially incomplete.
The clauses we focus on
Definitions, scope of obligation, payment, acceptance and delivery, change, warranties, liability and indemnity, confidentiality, intellectual property, force majeure, termination and its effects, notices, governing law and dispute resolution.
Reviewing the other side's contract
We do not rewrite a contract merely because the style differs. We identify the clauses that change the legal or commercial position and rank them by risk: what must be amended, what can be negotiated, and what can be accepted if the commercial return justifies it.
Repeat contracts
For companies that sign recurring forms, we can build a master template, alternative clauses, an authority matrix, a negotiation playbook, and a list of cases that need escalation to the legal department.
What do you receive?
A new contract or a reviewed version with clear markings, a short risk memorandum, a list of negotiation points, or a package of templates and contracting policies.
Next step
For an effective review, send the contract with a short summary of the deal, the commercial objective, and any sensitive negotiation points.
Mistakes we see most often in this kind of matter
Relying on a ready-made template. A contract or partners' agreement copied from another company does not reflect your allocation of authority, funding and exit, so its gaps surface at the first disagreement.
Letting reality diverge from the paper. The company is run by oral decisions and scattered messages while the documents say otherwise, which makes proof difficult in a dispute.
Neglecting exit and deadlock. No provision for how a partner leaves, how a tied vote is resolved, or how a stake is valued, so a management disagreement turns into an ownership crisis.
A contract with no path to performance. Payment, delivery, termination and notice terms are unclear, so no one knows what is sent, when, or to whom.
How the work runs
- 01
Reading the documents and the reality. We match what was written with what actually happens in the company or the deal, and identify the gaps.
- 02
Mapping options and risks. We show you what can be done and what follows from each option, in the language of decisions rather than the language of texts.
- 03
Drafting or negotiating. We draft the document or negotiate its terms from a position built on what can be proved and enforced.
- 04
Handover and follow-up. We hand over the document with a list of the obligations that follow and who is responsible for each.
What we need to start
You do not need every document before you contact us, but having the following shortens the first assessment:
- Articles of association or constitutional documents
- Partners' agreements, if any
- Ownership and funding structure
- Shareholder or board resolutions
- Key contracts and their drafts
- Correspondence showing actual performance
Frequently asked questions
Are the articles of association enough to govern the relationship between partners?
Usually not. The articles cover the basics; additional funding, deadlock, exit and non-competition need a detailed partners' agreement.
When should I ask for a contract review?
Before signing. Amending a clause before signature is far cheaper and easier than negotiating it after a dispute has arisen.
Do you handle the negotiation with the other side?
Yes, we lead or join the negotiation and build our position on what can be proved and enforced.
Read also
The information on this page is general and is not a legal opinion on a specific matter; the answer depends on the facts and on the law in force at the time.