Commercial Damages Expert — Dubai, the UAE and International Arbitration

Roman Garagulagian, Ph.D. has given testimony in 85 depositions and 24 trials since 2017, including cross-border commercial disputes involving non-U.S. parties. We do not maintain an office in the UAE. What we offer is a testifying economist who takes the assignment personally, works in English, and writes reports built to survive the report-contents and independence requirements that tribunals and the DIFC Courts actually apply.

What does a commercial damages expert do?

A commercial damages expert answers one question with evidence: what is the claimant financially worse off by, because of the conduct in dispute? That means constructing a but-for world — the financial position the claimant would have occupied had the breach, expropriation, delay or misconduct not occurred — measuring the actual world against it, and defending the difference under cross-examination.

The work is not bookkeeping. It requires choosing a damages construct (lost profits, lost business value, wasted expenditure, reliance loss), selecting a valuation date, building a financial model that a tribunal can follow, testing the projections against contemporaneous evidence rather than litigation-prepared forecasts, and stating the range of reasonable opinion rather than a single convenient number.

Economic damages expert, forensic accountant, valuation expert, quantum expert — what is the difference?

Counsel frequently use these titles interchangeably. Tribunals do not. The distinction matters when you are choosing who to appoint.

Discipline	Core question	Typical method	Best used for
Economic damages expert / forensic economist	What loss did the conduct cause?	But-for counterfactual, econometric and statistical analysis, present value	Causation-linked loss, lost profits, market and competitive effects, complex causation
Forensic accountant	What do the books and records show?	Tracing, reconstruction of accounts, verification of recorded transactions	Misappropriation, accounting irregularities, records-based claims
Business valuation expert	What was the business or interest worth?	Income (DCF), market and asset approaches at a defined valuation date	Shareholder exits, joint-venture unwinds, expropriation, share purchase disputes
Quantum expert	What sum should the tribunal award?	Umbrella term in international arbitration — draws on all of the above, plus delay and disruption pricing in construction	Arbitration proceedings, where “quantum” is the pleaded head opposite “liability”

In practice a quantum expert in an international arbitration is doing economics, valuation and accounting at once. The question worth asking a candidate is not which label they use but which method they will defend when the other side’s expert attacks it. See also: What is a forensic economist?

Commercial economic damages

Commercial damages engagements are the core of the practice. We quantify loss in disputes where the claim turns on money that did not arrive, value that was destroyed, or costs that should never have been incurred.

Breach-of-contract damages

Breach claims are measured against what performance would have delivered. The analysis distinguishes expectation loss from reliance loss, isolates the portion of the shortfall attributable to the breach rather than to market conditions, and addresses mitigation squarely instead of leaving it to cross-examination.

Where an agreement contains an agreed-compensation or liquidated-damages clause, quantification does not become unnecessary — it becomes decisive. Under the recodified UAE Civil Transactions Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 25 of 2025, in force 1 June 2026), Article 340 permits a court to reduce agreed compensation where the debtor proves the sum was exaggerated or where partial performance makes it excessive, and to increase it only on proof of fraud or gross fault. Agreements purporting to exclude Article 340 are void. The practical consequence for counsel: onshore, a liquidated-damages figure is a starting point, and the party that can put a credible measure of actual loss in front of the tribunal controls the argument.

Shareholder, partnership and joint-venture disputes

Disputes between owners require a valuation, a damages analysis, or both, and the two are not the same exercise. We quantify the value of a disputed interest at a defined date, measure loss from oppression, diversion of opportunity or breach of a shareholders’ agreement, and test whether claimed distributions, management charges and related-party transactions reflect economic substance.

Business interruption and lost revenue

Interruption claims — from project suspension, plant damage, supply failure, regulatory action or contractual termination — require a revenue and margin model for the interruption period, an indemnity or claim period defined with care, and separation of the interruption’s effect from everything else moving in the business at the same time. Extra expense, saved costs and make-up revenue all have to be handled explicitly; ignoring them is the most common reason an interruption number is discounted.

Related: Commercial litigation support · Forensic accounting

How are lost profits calculated in a UAE commercial dispute?

Lost profits are calculated by building the revenue the claimant would have earned but for the conduct in dispute, deducting the costs it would have incurred to earn that revenue, and bringing the resulting stream to present value at the appropriate date and discount rate. The discipline is in the evidence, not the arithmetic.

The but-for model

A defensible but-for model is anchored in something other than the claimant’s own optimism. Ranked roughly by the weight tribunals give them: the claimant’s own contemporaneous forecasts prepared before the dispute; its historical performance; performance of comparable parts of the same business unaffected by the conduct; industry and market benchmarks; and only last, projections prepared for the arbitration. An expert who leads with the last category invites the obvious attack.

Lost profits or lost business value?

Where the conduct destroyed or permanently impaired the business, a lost-profits stream understates the loss and a valuation is the right construct. Where the business survived and suffered a bounded period of underperformance, a lost-profits calculation is correct and a valuation over-recovers. Claiming both, or sliding between them, is a reliable way to lose credibility. We take a position on which construct fits and explain why.

What UAE law requires you to prove

Onshore, Article 255 of the 2025 Civil Code provides that compensation covers the loss suffered and the profit lost, where these are a natural consequence of the wrongful act. Lost profit is recoverable — but it carries a real certainty threshold: the claimant must show the profit would have materialised, not merely that it might have. Loss of a chance is treated as compensable in its own right, which gives a properly-constructed probability-weighted analysis a place to sit. Article 339 directs the court to assess the actual damage suffered where compensation is not fixed by law or contract; that wording is more accommodating of loss that crystallises over several periods than the provision it replaced.

Two practical points counsel should note. First, facts and transactions predating 1 June 2026 remain governed by the 1985 Civil Code, so live matters routinely straddle both regimes — and the old numbering (Articles 292, 389 and 390) will appear in pleadings and authorities for years. Second, recovery of indirect and consequential loss in contract is materially more constrained onshore than under English law; that constraint shapes the damages construct and should be settled with counsel before the model is built, not after. In the DIFC and ADGM the position is different again, and closer to what common-law counsel will expect. Nothing here is legal advice — the applicable law is counsel’s call, and we build the model to it.

What information is needed to calculate lost profits?

A useful first exchange is short. To scope a lost-profits analysis we normally ask for:

• Monthly or quarterly financial statements for three to five years before the loss period, and through it
• The management accounts, budgets and board packs prepared before the dispute arose
• The contract, amendments, variation orders and correspondence fixing price, volume and term
• Transaction-level sales data — by customer, product, geography and channel, not just totals
• Cost structure detail sufficient to separate variable from fixed costs
• Evidence of mitigation: replacement contracts, redeployed assets, cost savings realised
• Market, sector and competitor data covering the same period
• The pleadings, and the opposing expert’s report if one has been served

If the records are incomplete, say so early. Gaps are workable; discovering them after a report is drafted is not. You can send documents securely before any engagement is signed.

Economic and quantum evidence in international arbitration

What does an economic expert do in international arbitration?

In an arbitration, the economic expert owns the quantum case. That means: a written report that meets the tribunal’s report-contents requirements; a model the tribunal’s own expert or the opposing expert can rebuild from the workpapers; a reply report addressing the other side’s analysis on its own terms; participation in experts’ meetings and a joint memorandum identifying what is agreed and what is genuinely in dispute; and oral evidence, frequently as part of a panel rather than sequential cross-examination.

Where the IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence (2020) are adopted — as they routinely are by procedural order in UAE-seated cases — Article 5.2 fixes what a party-appointed expert’s report must contain: present and past relationships with the parties, counsel and the tribunal; qualifications; a statement of the instructions received; a statement of independence; the facts relied on; the methods, evidence and information used; the conclusions; and an affirmation of genuine belief in the opinions expressed. Article 5.6 is the one counsel should keep in mind when scheduling: an expert who fails to appear at the hearing without valid reason has their report disregarded.

The CIArb Protocol for the Use of Party-Appointed Expert Witnesses makes the point that matters most to a tribunal weighing a party-appointed economist: the expert’s duty is to assist the tribunal in deciding the issues, and the payment of professional fees does not of itself compromise impartiality. What compromises impartiality is conduct — advocacy, selective use of data, and unwillingness to concede a point that should be conceded.

DIAC arbitration

Following Decree No. 34 of 2021, which abolished the Emirates Maritime Arbitration Centre and the DIFC Arbitration Institute (the body administering DIFC-LCIA arbitration) and consolidated their caseload into the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, DIAC is Dubai’s principal arbitral institution.

Two features of the DIAC Arbitration Rules 2022 bear directly on expert evidence. First, Article 20.1 makes the DIFC the default seat where the parties have not agreed one — so a DIAC arbitration with a silent seat clause is a free-zone proceeding, with the consequences that follow for curial law and enforcement. Second, the Rules contain a detailed tribunal-appointed expert regime at Article 28 but no separate code for party-appointed experts; Article 28.4 expressly preserves the parties’ right to present their own expert witnesses to testify on the issues in dispute, and Articles 25 and 27.3 leave admissibility, form and weight to the tribunal. In practice the procedural order fills the gap, usually by adopting the IBA Rules. Counsel should therefore raise expert-evidence directions — sequencing, simultaneous or sequential exchange, joint memoranda, concurrent evidence — at the first procedural hearing rather than later.

DIFC Courts

The DIFC is a financial free zone with its own civil and commercial law, English-language proceedings, and courts whose jurisdiction extends both to DIFC-connected matters and, on an opt-in basis, to any claim where the parties agree in writing. Damages are governed by the DIFC Contract Law (DIFC Law No. 6 of 2004) and the Law of Damages and Remedies (DIFC Law No. 7 of 2005). On agreed sums, Article 21 of the latter allows recovery irrespective of actual loss, subject to reduction where the sum is manifestly disproportionate — a materially more bargain-respecting position than the onshore Article 340 regime, and a reason the seat and forum choice changes the quantum analysis.

Part 31 of the Rules of the DIFC Courts sets the expert’s obligations, and they are demanding in ways worth knowing before you appoint anyone. The expert’s duty to the Court overrides the duty to the instructing party (RDC 31.3–31.11). Expert evidence requires the Court’s permission, normally sought at the case management conference (31.12). The report is addressed to the Court, must state the substance of all facts and instructions given to the expert, must identify the range of opinion and the reasons for the view adopted, and carries a statement of truth (31.51–31.56). The other side may put written questions once, within 28 days (31.24). Experts are usually directed to meet and produce a joint memorandum, and legal representatives must not restrict that discussion (31.58–31.64). Concurrent evidence — panel format, with opening and closing statements capped at ten minutes — is expressly provided for (31.48). An expert who cannot write to that standard or sit on that panel is the wrong appointment.

ADGM and Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi Global Market applies English common law, including the rules and principles of equity, directly — a closer linkage to English law than the DIFC’s codified statutes. Expert evidence is governed by Part 17 of the ADGM Court Procedure Rules 2016: rule 140 imposes the same overriding duty to the Court, rule 141 governs the report, rule 143 written questions, and rules 144–145 the single joint expert. For a damages expert the practical position is close to the DIFC’s.

Onshore UAE courts — the honest limitation

Onshore litigation before the Dubai, Abu Dhabi and federal courts runs on a different model, and counsel should hear this plainly rather than discover it later. Proceedings are in Arabic and turn on court-appointed judicial experts drawn from the Ministry of Justice register and, in Dubai, the Centre for Judicial Expertise under Dubai Law No. 13 of 2020. The court expert’s report carries substantial, often near-dispositive weight. Registration requires attested qualifications, a minimum period of experience, examination, insurance and local arrangements that a non-resident foreign economist will not ordinarily satisfy.

A foreign economist is not categorically excluded — Dubai Law No. 13 of 2020 preserves routes for a person jointly agreed by the litigants and approved by the court, and for appointment by the judicial authority in a case requiring that expertise — but those are exceptions, not the ordinary course. In onshore proceedings our value is behind the line: building the party’s damages case, preparing the submissions and questions that test the court expert’s methodology, and identifying where that methodology departs from accepted practice.

In DIAC, DIFC- and ADGM-seated arbitration, and before the DIFC and ADGM Courts, there is no nationality, residency or local-qualification requirement for an expert witness. That is where this work sits.

When should arbitration counsel retain a damages expert?

Earlier than most do. The high-value moments are before the Request for Arbitration or Statement of Claim is settled, when the damages theory can still shape the pleaded case and the relief sought; and before document production is agreed, when the expert can identify the data the model will need while the request is still open. Retaining quantum after liability submissions are filed routinely produces a claim the evidence cannot support, or a document request that omits the one dataset the model required. A short scoping call before the theory is fixed costs little and changes outcomes.

Business valuation in disputes

Valuation in a dispute is not valuation for a transaction. The date is imposed by the claim rather than chosen; the information set is constrained by what was knowable at that date; and the conclusion has to withstand an opposing expert paid to dismantle it.

We value businesses, shareholdings, joint-venture interests and income-producing assets using income, market and asset-based approaches, with the primary approach chosen and justified rather than averaged. Recurring battlegrounds include the provenance of the projections, terminal value assumptions, discounts for lack of control and marketability, normalisation of related-party transactions and owner compensation, and the treatment of events after the valuation date — the ex ante versus ex post question that decides a surprising share of quantum disputes.

Related: Economic consulting and valuation

Construction and project-related economic losses

Construction and infrastructure disputes dominate arbitration caseloads in the region, and their quantum is a distinct discipline: prolongation and extended preliminaries, disruption and lost productivity, valuation of variations, unabsorbed overhead, termination losses, and the contractor’s or employer’s lost profit on the balance of the works.

Our contribution is the economic and financial layer — the modelling, the overhead recovery, the profit and finance-cost analysis, the escalation and inflation treatment, and the present-value work — alongside delay and technical expertise where a matter needs it. See construction damages.

Financial, statistical and econometric analysis

Where causation is contested or the data is large, assertion is not enough. We use regression and econometric methods to separate the effect of the conduct in dispute from market, seasonal and competitive movements; event studies where a price reaction is in issue; and statistical sampling where the population of transactions is too large to examine in full. Methods are documented so the opposing expert can replicate them — which is the point.

Present value, discount rates and currency

Present-value work decides more awards than it is given credit for. The choices that matter are the valuation date, the discount rate, and the consistency between the two. Discount rates for UAE and GCC exposures are built from a cost of capital with a country risk premium appropriate to the specific exposure — and one recurring error is worth naming: embedding in the discount rate the very risk that is the subject of the claim, which double-counts and understates the award.

On currency, the UAE dirham has been pegged to the US dollar at 3.6725 since 1997, so AED-denominated loss translates into USD without material exchange-rate distortion. Currency questions in UAE matters therefore turn on the claimant’s currency of loss and the currency of the award, not on FX exposure between the two. Interest requires more care: onshore, commercial-debt interest is governed by the Commercial Transactions Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 50 of 2022), which permits an agreed rate subject to judicial reduction and sets a ceiling where none is agreed; and the treatment of simple versus compound interest differs from what common-law counsel will expect. We model interest explicitly, on stated assumptions, rather than folding it into a single figure.

Related: Impact and statistical analysis · Data science

Rebuttal and critique of opposing damages analyses

A substantial share of our work is defensive: reviewing an opposing expert’s report and identifying where the model, the inputs or the reasoning will not hold. That review is structured — is the damages construct the right one; are the projections contemporaneous or litigation-prepared; is causation separated from market movement; is the discount rate internally consistent with the cash flows it discounts; are the workpapers complete enough to reproduce the result; does the report meet the applicable report-contents requirements.

Rebuttal engagements are frequently decided on whether the critique is proportionate. A report attacking every assumption reads as advocacy. A report identifying the three defects that change the number reads as evidence. We are also retained to test a party’s own expert analysis before it is served, which is a cheaper way to find the same problems.

Why attorneys and arbitration counsel retain Forensic Economic Services

• The economist you retain is the economist who works the file. Scoping, modelling, drafting and testimony are performed by the testifying expert, not delegated down a pyramid and signed at the top.
• Testimony experience. 85 depositions and 24 trials since 2017, across commercial, employment, securities, intellectual property and personal injury damages — including cross-border matters involving non-U.S. parties.
• Independence handled properly. Conflicts are cleared on party names before substantive discussion; instructions and information relied on are stated in the report, as Article 5.2 of the IBA Rules and the DIFC report-contents rules require.
• Work suited to both sides. Claimant and respondent, affirmative and rebuttal. A practice that only ever produces large numbers is not an independent practice.
• Reproducible models. Live, unlocked workpapers that the tribunal’s expert or the opposing expert can rebuild — not a PDF of a conclusion.
• Proportionate scoping. Not every dispute needs a full damages model at the outset. We will say when a scoping memorandum is the right first step.

Types of disputes handled

• Breach of contract and supply, distribution and agency terminations
• Shareholder, partnership and joint-venture disputes
• Business interruption and contingent business interruption
• Construction, engineering and infrastructure disputes
• Post-acquisition and share purchase agreement disputes, including earn-out and warranty claims
• Intellectual property and technology disputes — reasonable royalty, lost profits, unjust enrichment
• Competition and antitrust damages, including foreclosure and exclusionary conduct
• Securities and financial-market damages, including event-study analysis
• Insurance and reinsurance coverage disputes
• Professional negligence claims with a financial-loss component
• Employment and compensation disputes, including class and collective claims
• Fraud, asset misappropriation and financial misconduct

Industries served

Construction and infrastructure · energy, oil and gas · real estate and hospitality · trading, distribution and logistics · manufacturing · financial services and asset management · healthcare and pharmaceuticals · technology, software and telecommunications · retail and consumer · professional services · transport and aviation.

Dubai, the UAE and the GCC — geographic coverage

We are based in downtown Los Angeles and accept engagements in matters connected to the UAE and the wider Gulf, working with counsel remotely and travelling for hearings. We do not maintain a Dubai office, and we say so rather than implying a local presence we do not have. We are expanding the Middle East practice deliberately, matter by matter.

Matters we are equipped to take include arbitrations seated in Dubai (DIAC), the DIFC or ADGM; ICC, LCIA and UNCITRAL proceedings involving UAE or GCC parties; DIFC Courts and ADGM Courts proceedings; disputes involving Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman parties or operations; and cross-border matters where a UAE-connected business is in issue before a U.S. court or arbitral tribunal. Working language is English; where records are in Arabic we work with counsel’s translators and state in the report what was translated and by whom.

Expert credentials

Roman Garagulagian, Ph.D. — Principal, Forensic Economic Services, LLC.

• Ph.D. in Economics, Claremont Graduate University
• Testifying expert: 85 depositions and 24 trials since 2017
• Vice President–West and member of the Board of Directors, National Association of Forensic Economics
• Senior Fellow, Competition and Innovation Lab, The George Washington University
• Lecturer in Finance, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (since 2014)
• Practice areas: commercial damages, lost profits, business valuation, forensic accounting, securities and financial-market damages, intellectual property damages, competition economics, employment damages, statistical and econometric analysis

Full biography and testimony background: About Forensic Economic Services.

Frequently asked questions

Can a U.S. economist serve as an expert in an international arbitration involving UAE parties?

Yes. In arbitration — DIAC, DIFC- or ADGM-seated, ICC, LCIA or ad hoc — there is no nationality, residency or local-qualification requirement for an expert witness. DIAC Arbitration Rules Article 28.4 expressly preserves the parties’ right to present their own expert witnesses, and the UAE Federal Arbitration Law permits parties to seek the assistance of experts. The same is true before the DIFC Courts and ADGM Courts, which sit in English and impose duties on experts rather than licensing requirements. The exception is onshore UAE court litigation, which runs on court-appointed experts from the Ministry of Justice and Dubai Courts registers.

What is the difference between a quantum expert and a damages expert?

Little in substance. “Quantum expert” is the term of art in international arbitration, where quantum is pleaded opposite liability; “damages expert” and “forensic economist” are the equivalent terms in U.S. and common-law litigation. In construction arbitration “quantum expert” often signals a quantity surveying background focused on delay and disruption pricing, while an economist focuses on lost profits, valuation and causation. Complex construction matters commonly need both.

How are lost profits calculated in a UAE commercial dispute?

By constructing the revenue and margin the claimant would have achieved but for the conduct, deducting avoided costs, accounting for mitigation, and discounting to present value. Onshore, Article 255 of the 2025 UAE Civil Code makes lost profit recoverable where it is a natural consequence of the wrongful act, subject to a genuine certainty threshold — speculative profit is not awarded, although loss of a chance is separately compensable. In the DIFC and ADGM the position tracks common-law principles more closely. The evidentiary anchor in every forum is the same: contemporaneous, pre-dispute forecasts and records.

What information do you need to calculate lost profits?

Financial statements and management accounts for three to five years before and through the loss period; pre-dispute budgets and forecasts; the contract and its variations; transaction-level sales data by customer, product and geography; cost detail sufficient to separate fixed from variable costs; evidence of mitigation; market and competitor data; and the pleadings and any opposing expert report. Incomplete records are workable if identified early.

When should arbitration counsel retain a damages expert?

Before the claim is pleaded, and before document production is agreed. Those are the two points at which expert input changes what is recoverable rather than merely describing it. Late appointment produces claims the evidence cannot support and document requests that miss the data the model needed.

Do you accept both claimant and respondent appointments?

Yes, on both sides, and a material share of the practice is rebuttal work testing an opposing expert’s analysis. Independence is not a posture — it is the reason the evidence is worth anything.

Does Forensic Economic Services have an office in Dubai?

No. The firm is based in downtown Los Angeles and accepts UAE, GCC and international arbitration engagements, working with counsel remotely and travelling for hearings and site visits. We are building the Middle East practice matter by matter and would rather say that than imply a local presence we do not have.

How do conflicts and engagement work?

Send the party names, the forum and the approximate hearing timetable. Conflicts are cleared before any substantive discussion of the matter. A short scoping call follows, and where useful we will propose a scoping memorandum before a full damages report is commissioned.

What languages and documents can you work with?

Work is performed in English. Where financial records, contracts or correspondence are in Arabic, we work from counsel’s certified translations and state in the report which documents were translated and by whom, as the report-contents rules require.