Isam Salah
Isam Salah, Partner, King & Spalding
The Response to the Financial Crisis in the Middle East
Synopsis: Mr. Salah will discuss the impact of the financial crisis on the business environment in the Middle East, including the impact on Islamic financial institutions and investment companies. Particular attention will be given to examining whether these financial institutions and investment companies, which operate in accordance with principles of Islamic Shari’ah, responded differently than conventional institutions to these economic forces.
Biography: Isam Salah is a senior finance partner in King & Spalding’s New York and Dubai offices, and heads up the firm’s Middle East & Islamic Finance Practice Group. His practice covers a broad range of international and domestic finance and investment matters, with particular emphasis for the past fifteen years on the structuring of Shari’ah-compliant finance and investment transactions. His work in this area has included the first, and more than a dozen, Shari’ah-compliant financings for private equity investments, the utilization of a Rule 144a high-yield note offering to fund the Shari-ah-compliant financing of private equity investment, several billion dollars worth of Shari’ah-compliant property investments, the implementation of the first Euro-Sukuk transaction on behalf of a corporate issuer, the structuring of mezzanine and junior secured property financings (securitized and rated), and the structuring of a home mortgage product. Mr. Salah is a frequent writer and speaker on the topic of Islamic finance and investment. He is a former President of the Arab Bankers Association of North America. A graduate of Case Western Reserve University, Mr. Salah received his law degree from Cleveland State University, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Cleveland State Law Review. He received his LL.M from Georgetown University, where he held a fellowship at that University’s International Law Center.
