Ehab Elsonbaty

Ehab Elsonbaty’s practice focuses on sovereign wealth funds, government advice and projects and affairs, corporate matters, corporate governance, sustainability, ESG, and sharia Islamic-compliant legal services. He advises Middle Eastern entities seeking to do business in the Americas and Americas clients seeking to do business in the Middle East. Elsonbaty’s extensive transactional and regulatory experience enables him to provide efficient and effective strategic legal support in a wide variety of business matters. Elsonbaty is a strategic advisor to many boards of directors and advisory boards. He helps the firm deliver seamless cross-border solutions for Middle East entities, including corporate enterprises, private equity investors, family offices, government entities, and sovereign wealth funds. He helps clients maximize inbound and outbound opportunities arising from this dynamic region, providing comprehensive bilingual legal services and sensitive on-the-ground awareness of each geography in this diverse region.  

Before joining DLA Piper, Elsonbaty served as senior legal counsel and head of corporate governance and government affairs and senior advisor to the general counsel on special projects at the Qatar Investment Authority, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. There he was responsible for strategic, corporate, sustainability, ESG, and special projects and transactions valued at billions of dollars as well as was a member of several management committees, including the Management Investment Committee and Crisis Management Committee. Earlier in his career, he served for six years as a senior legal advisor to the Amiri Diwan, the office of the emir of Qatar at the Royal Court. During this time, Elsonbaty was also a member of many policy and legal committees, including the Permanent Legislative Committee of the Council of Ministers, Committee for Review of Legislation, and National Committee to Review Commercial Laws of the Ministry of Economy and Trade. Elsonbaty drafted and contributed to several laws and regulations of Qatar, the GCC, and the Middle East. In addition, he served as a public prosecutor in the Egyptian public prosecution, as a judge in the commercial courts, and with the assistant minister of justice for more than 15 years, most recently as a judge in Cairo’s Court of Appeal. He is currently admitted to the Bar in Egypt and is a certified and practicing arbitrator and mediator as well as a member of the Egyptian Judges Club. During his service in Egypt, Elsonbaty was seconded to the Ministry of Justice’s Office for International Cooperation and Human Rights, an advisor to the Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology, a member of the National Committee for Humanitarian Law, a member of the National Committee for Counterterrorism, and on the national committee to control the public elections. He has provided consultancy support to several regional and international organizations, such as the United Nations, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, International Telecommunication Union, U.N. Trade and Development, Council of Europe, and Arab League.