Businesses should consider carefully the impacts on projects and contracts affected by the 2026 current regional conflict. Key considerations include:

• Immediate contract review. Examine force majeure and hardship clauses, notice requirements, governing law, and mitigation obligations. Contractual terms take precedence over statutory defaults. Particular care is needed where contracts are governed by DIFC or ADGM law, which follow English common law and do not provide the same statutory relief available under domestic UAE law.

• Timely formal notices that specify affected obligations. Many contracts impose strict notice deadlines. Failure to comply can eliminate entitlement to relief altogether. Notices should clearly identify the triggering events, the precise, affected obligations, and mitigation steps being taken.

• Evidence, evidence, evidence. Proof is essential if litigation becomes necessary. Businesses should document physical damage, supply‐chain disruptions, cost escalations, alternative arrangements explored, communications with counterparties, and any government directives or restrictions.

• Active mitigation. Courts will scrutinise whether reasonable steps were taken to minimise impact. Exploring alternative routes, suppliers, or methods of performance — even at increased cost — demonstrates good faith and strengthens any claim.

• Impossibility vs hardship. Where performance is truly impossible (e.g. destroyed infrastructure, closed shipping lanes), force majeure offers the strongest basis for relief. Where performance remains technically possible but economically ruinous, the legal doctrine of hindrance/ hardship may allows judicial adjustment. These avenues are not mutually exclusive.

• Foreseeability going forward. For contracts entered into after the onset of hostilities, the conflict itself is no longer unforeseeable. New agreements should expressly allocate the risk of continued or escalating hostilities.

• Monitor regulatory developments. Emergency legislation, ministerial decrees, or judicial guidance specific to the current hostilities may emerge and should be incorporated promptly into risk assessments.

In periods like this, speed, precision, communication and documentation are as critical as legal analysis. Early action can preserve rights that may otherwise be lost.

Carolina Gerding, Michael Hancock, KLME

This note is intended as general guidance only and does not constitute legal advice on any specific situation.

If this raises questions relevant to your contracts or your clients, feel free to reach out directly. I’d also welcome views from colleagues on how courts in the region are beginning to respond — particularly whether emergency guidance is emerging at the DIFC or ADGM level. Acting early is the difference between preserving rights and losing them.

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