Q: While closing the contract and final payments are overdue, the client is claiming that they will not release such overdue payment because of a mistake that my technician did during his performance of activity which falls under our scope of work. This mistake had cost the client around 100k AED as fine from ADDC plus another 100k AED against modification of the work done by the client after the mistake happened to comply with ADDC requirement. Does my client have the right to do so, knowing that there is no limit of liability clause in our contract but our contract is under the UAE law? Please advise.

Q: We are a software company who have signed a contract with a client. The contract expired in Nov. 2015. We continued to work with the client on the project. We received 5 payments out of 7 payments that were due. Each payment was linked to a milestone in the project. Now the client claims the software solution is not up to the quality they want and they want to sue us for damages. In the contract, we have a clause that says they can sue for a maximum of 50% of the money they paid us. However, each of the 5 payments they made were linked to a milestone of the project contract and the payments that were made were approved by their managers who now claim that the software quality has an issue. Are they entitled to sue for damages? How can we best protect ourselves?

Q: Hi, We are a technical & cleaning service provider. We worked on the facade cleaning of Hotel Apartments and submitted our invoice on the 18th of March 2018. As per our contract, we receive our payment within 15 days after the submission of the invoice. But this time we are chasing them for the 15 days period which was on April 4, 2018. Every time we ask, their finance department was replying that the signatory is not available. Yesterday, the 28th of July, we arranged a meeting with their GM and discussed everything with him. We were shocked that the GM said: "Go to the police, we will not pay you anything." I replied, "Why"? He said, "The management is not willing to pay anything to anyone". We have the contract with them, a copy of the submitted invoice, and photos of all work progress. Advise us, what should we do? Regards, S. S. H. Managing Director

Q: Dear Sir/Madam, I have a pet shop, and a customer has boarded 2 cats and 4 kittens with us, initially for 3 days. However, he extended their stay, and now it has been 45 days. He keeps promising to take the cats but never does. His bill is now over 7000 dhs, and I don't think he has any intention of paying. I am unsure what to do to ensure he takes the cats and pays his bill. The municipality may just take them without any legal action.

The provisions of this law, promulgating UAE Civil Code, govern the civil transactions in the United Arab Emirates. The commercial transactions remain subject to the laws and regulations applicable in their regard.