Questions & Answers
Choosing the suitable jurisdiction for an international startup
Dear sir/madam,
I am part of a very early-stage startup and we are trying to write up an NDA for our team members. We haven’t incorporated anywhere and our team members are scattered all over the world. (I’m currently in the UAE, the founder is in Turkey, someone is in Indonesia, etc.).
We’re struggling to figure out what jurisdiction we’d even fall under since it’s an international employment contract.
Even if we were to settle on one jurisdiction, wouldn’t we have to physically be there?
What courts would even hear us? What should we do?
Dear questioner,
Well, you can either make it a separate NDA for each employee and amend the jurisdiction according to their home country or residence country.
Or you can make it unified under the arbitration clause and choose one arbitration center located in each country.
Or you can refer it to UAE courts and sue them inside the UAE where you can impose a labor ban in case of a violation.
For more information, please reach out via email.
Dear questioner,
I prefer to keep the UAE courts and UAE laws as the jurisdiction court and the governing law because here everything is online plus the execution is strong.
Dear questioner,
You can choose a specific country that will be available to you for litigation, such as the United Arab Emirates, for example, but in the event of a breach by any partner in your group, it is preferable to submit the case file in this country, and arbitration can be resorted to in any country according to the agreement, and all this is general information that must be discussed and clarified in a consultation session legally.
