The Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) on Tuesday announced new regulations to encourage ultra-wealthy families to establish single family offices (SFOs) at the DIFC. Created in consultation with the DFSA, the new regulations specifically address the needs of family run institutions and create a platform for wealthy families to set up holding companies at the DIFC to manage private family wealth and family structures anywhere in the world. Dr. Omar Bin Sulaiman, governor of DIFC, said: “In recent times, family offices have become highly significant on the global economic landscape. In the Middle East, where more than 75 percent of firms are family-run and with total assets in excess of $1 trillion, the need for a specialized legal and regulatory framework is especially acute.” “In contrast to conventional financial institutions, Single Family Offices (SFOs) have no direct public liability as all single family offices shareholders are bloodline descendants of a common ancestor. As such, their regulatory requirements differ significantly. By establishing the new regulations, the DIFC is once again reaffirming its commitment to family run businesses thus addressing its desire to make the DIFC a hub for local, regional and international family offices.” Central to the new regulations, the DIFC has introduced changes to DIFC's SFO platform and has made consequential amendments to other DIFC and DFSA regulations such as the DFSA's general module and glossary module. The new regulations offer distinct benefits to family offices as they exclude SFO from many of the regulatory constraints placed on conventional organizations located at the DIFC. The regulations follow the establishment of the DIFC Family Office initiative, which provides comprehensive infrastructure solutions for families and family businesses operating in the region. The DIFC Family Office was created to promote DIFC as an ideal domicile for family offices and is a further extension of the DIFC value proposition across businesses within the center. The DIFC has now established an environment that combines a robust legal and regulatory framework with a comprehensive offering of the services that family offices require to operate successfully. __
