DLA Piper advises Uniper on the closing of the sale of its marine fuels trading business in Dubai

DLA Piper already advised the Uniper Group last year on the sale of its crude oil processing and - marine fuel trading business in the United Arab Emirates, which was completed in January 2023. Uniper has transferred all shares in its subsidiary Uniper Energy DMCC to a consortium comprising the Swiss-based Montfort Group and the Private Office of Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum. Given the high complexity of the transaction and the particularities of completing a share transfer under local UAE law, the closing of the transaction required extensive preparations, in which the DLA Piper team assisted Uniper.

Uniper Energy DMCC produces and supplies IMO 2020 compliant low sulfur marine fuels for the Fujairah market, one of the world's three largest bunker fuel markets. The business comprises the operation of a crude oil processing facility in the Port of Fujairah and a trade office based in Dubai. The Uniper Energy Fujairah fuel oil production facility has a crude processing capacity of two mega-barrels per month and a fuel oil production capacity of five million tons per year.

Ulrich Krockenberger, VP Legal and legal lead of the transaction on Uniper's side commented as follows "We are grateful to the DLA Piper team for providing excellent advice to Uniper on this highly complex and cross-border transaction with commercial understanding and again working closely networked with the Uniper legal and M&A team."

The DLA Piper team was jointly led by counsel Dr Isaschar Nicolaysen and partner Dr Benjamin Parameswaran with senior associate Jan Schürmann in the core team (all Corporate/M&A, Hamburg). In addition, an international team from DLA Piper was active in Dubai and the UK.

Uniper's internal legal team was led by Ulrich Krockenberger (VP Legal) in cooperation with the internal M&A team.