New Lex Mundi guide provides a practical framework for companies managing legal and operational risk amid geopolitical disruption
For energy companies and other businesses with international operations, geopolitical instability rarely stays confined to the country where it begins. Disruption overseas can quickly affect contracts, supply chains, employees, insurance coverage, financing, cybersecurity, regulatory obligations and business operations thousands of miles away.
Those risks are particularly relevant for Oklahoma and the broader region, where energy companies routinely participate in global markets through international operations, joint ventures, suppliers, customers, financing arrangements and other cross-border relationships.
Lex Mundi, the world’s leading network of independent law firms, recently released Business Resilience in Times of Crisis: A Legal and Operational Guide for the Middle East, designed to help in-house legal teams and business leaders assess and manage those risks. The guide addresses issues across Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The guide examines eight areas that businesses should consider when geopolitical events threaten normal operations:
- Contracts and risk allocation, including force majeure, impossibility, hardship and circumstances in which contractual obligations may continue despite disruption;
- Disputes and enforcement, including litigation and arbitration preparedness and cross-border enforcement;
- Insurance and financial protection, including war, terrorism and sanctions exclusions, notification requirements, political risk insurance and trade-credit coverage;
- Workforce and employment, including the management of employees during periods of disruption;
- Supply chain and operations, including logistics, vendors and operational continuity;
- Banking, payments and finance, including payment and trade-finance challenges;
- Investments and transactions, including enhanced diligence and contractual risk protections; and
- Data, cybersecurity and technology, including jurisdiction-specific data and technology risks.
For energy companies, operational resilience requires looking beyond the immediate event
A disruption involving the Middle East may initially present as a supply-chain problem, delayed payment or interrupted contract. But the legal implications can quickly spread across the enterprise.
An oil and gas company, for example, may need to determine whether a force majeure clause applies to an interrupted contract while simultaneously assessing insurance coverage, alternative suppliers, employment obligations, financial exposure, regulatory requirements and potential dispute strategies.
Those issues cannot always be addressed independently. Decisions made in one area can materially affect the company’s position in another.
That is particularly important in energy, where transactions and operations can involve ownership and title, operating rights, environmental conditions, contracts, permits, financing and regulatory obligations. Crowe Dunlevy’s multidisciplinary Energy team already brings corporate, environmental, real estate, tax, finance, labor and employment, administrative and litigation capabilities together to evaluate those interconnected risks.
Local counsel at home. Local knowledge around the world.
For Oklahoma and regional businesses confronting international uncertainty, the challenge is often not simply identifying lawyers in another country. It is coordinating advice across jurisdictions while keeping the company’s larger commercial objectives in view.
Crowe Dunlevy is uniquely positioned to help bridge that gap.
As the exclusive Oklahoma member firm of Lex Mundi, Crowe Dunlevy can connect clients with leading independent law firms throughout the world while remaining closely involved in the broader strategy and coordination of a cross-border matter. The firm’s International Practice combines that global reach with Crowe Dunlevy’s full-service capabilities in Oklahoma and Texas.
That model enables a company headquartered in this region to work with counsel that understands its business while also accessing lawyers with firsthand knowledge of the laws, regulators, courts and commercial environment in the affected jurisdiction.
For the Middle East specifically, the new guide draws on Lex Mundi member firms in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, providing jurisdiction-specific perspectives rather than attempting to apply a single regional answer to materially different legal systems.
Crowe Dunlevy’s International Practice similarly works across the firm on cross-border matters involving areas including mergers and acquisitions, tax, technology, securities, real estate, antitrust, environmental law, labor and employment, export controls, financing, anti-corruption and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act compliance.
Questions businesses should be asking now
Companies with operations, investments, counterparties or supply-chain exposure in the Middle East should consider:
- Which contracts could be affected by political, military, or economic disruption, and what do their force majeure, termination, and material adverse change provisions actually provide?
- Has the company identified critical suppliers and counterparties that could become unavailable?
- Do existing insurance policies address political violence, terrorism, war, business interruption and trade-credit risk, and are there notice requirements that must be satisfied?
- Could sanctions or banking disruptions affect payments, financing or the ability to perform contractual obligations?
- Are contingency plans in place for employees working in or traveling through affected jurisdictions?
- Could alternative logistics or sourcing arrangements create new regulatory, customs, employment, tax or contractual obligations?
- Are cybersecurity and data-continuity plans adequate if systems, vendors or local infrastructure become unavailable?
- If a dispute develops, does the company know where and how contractual rights can be enforced?
The time to evaluate these questions is before a disruption becomes a crisis.
How Crowe Dunlevy can help
Crowe Dunlevy’s multidisciplinary approach is especially suited to businesses whose international challenges cut across traditional practice-area boundaries.
The firm’s energy lawyers already advise major oil and gas companies, mid-sized exploration and production companies, midstream businesses, refiners, utilities, renewable-energy developers, investors and other energy-sector participants on matters ranging from transactions and financing to permitting, operations, enforcement and litigation.
Combined with Crowe Dunlevy’s International Practice and its access to Lex Mundi member firms around the world, that experience allows the firm to help clients assess both the immediate legal issue and the larger business implications of cross-border disruption.
Businesses with operations, investments or commercial relationships in the Middle East can review Lex Mundi’s Business Resilience in Times of Crisis: A Legal and Operational Guide for the Middle East here.
Crowe Dunlevy attorneys are available to help companies evaluate their exposure, develop contingency strategies and coordinate jurisdiction-specific advice through the Lex Mundi network.