Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has launched an office in Abu Dhabi, 10 months after it closed down its Dubai office when its only two partners there, Gavin Watson and Chris Sioufi, were raided by Dewey & LeBoeuf.

It started operations in Dubai in 2005 and was the first US firm to receive a license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority to provide legal services to financial institutions operating in the Dubai International Financial Centre.
 
The firm’s new Abu Dhabi office will be headed by corporate partner Natasha Kohne who has relocated from New York. She will be joined by six lawyers including corporate partners Lee Kolodny and Elisabeth Cappuyns. Three associates from New York and London will complete the line-up, with the firm hoping to grow the office to 20 lawyers over the next three to four years.

Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, DLA Piper, Ashurst, Norton Rose and Eversheds and US firms Hogan & Hartson and Latham & Watkins are among the firms receiving Abu Dhabi licenses over the last year.