Judge Rules in favor of DIB in NMC Restructuring

A judge in Abu Dhabi’s International Financial Center (ADGM) has ruled in favour of Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) in a case dealing with claims over securities of the troubled NMC. According to the ruling, the ADGM court does not have jurisdiction over the agreements regulating the securities.  NMC was placed under administration last year after it failed to disclose a hidden debt of ~$4bn. DIB has an exposure of ~$400mn to NMC which was backed by a collateral of insurance receivables. NMC’s administrator Alvarez & Marshal (A&M) had claimed the securities in the ADGM court last month after DIB had filed a lawsuit in Dubai courts with an aim to safeguard its exposure to NMC. If the case was won by the administrators of NMC then these securities could be used to pay creditors other than DIB. The NMC restructuring had become complicated after DIB and NMC administrators had filed cases in different courts – DIB had filed the case in Dubai courts which use the UAE law while A&M had filed the case in ADGM which is an offshore court. As per Reuters source, after the ruling, there is a risk of further fragmenting NMC debt which could complicate the restructuring process.