A lot to rejoice on DFSA’s 10th anniversary bash

Frank Kane looks back at a rollercoaster ride for all involved in the past decade at Dubai's financial centre.

The year 2004 was a momentous one in Dubai’s financial history. Before my time here, but we are going to be reminded of it non-stop over the next month or so.

Ten years back, the decrees were signed and issued that brought into existence the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), and all the apparatus that surrounds it: registrars, regulators, courts and administrators. Now it is time for a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday DIFC”.

Perhaps to maximise their enjoyment, the different parts of the 15,000-strong DIFC hub seem to have organised their own celebrations of the event.

One mid-afternoon last week, I spotted a crowd of revellers from the DIFC Courts leaving a restaurant in the Gate after what had clearly been an intense bout of celebration. They followed that, I am told, with an energetic dinner party in the Ritz-Carlton.

Next month, the DIFC itself conducts what is apparently the climax of the festivities, with a big bash around the Gate building, timed to coincide with the annual visit of the World Economic Forum to the UAE. Those Weffers certainly know how to celebrate, so will be greatly looking forward to the event.

In the meantime, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) has seen a window of opportunity for its own events to mark the occasion. The big do comes at the end of the month, but there have been semi-spontaneous outbreaks of festivity already.

Not many people know this, but of the 135 staffers at the DFSA, six have completed the full decade with the authority, so as their 10-year anniversaries have popped up so have the birthday cakes and party hats. Congratulations to them for their unstinting although largely unsung efforts for the authority.

Now, a decade on, is also a suitable occasion to remember many of the other more high-profile figures who have passed through Dubai’s regulatory finishing school.

It is probably inappropriate to linger too long on Ian Hay-Davison and Philip Thorpe, who helped set the regulatory framework but who left before it was fully operational.

Habib Al Mulla, the doyen of Dubai’s legal establishment, was the chairman when the regulator was launched, with David King alongside as the managing director.

Both set a certain style which was followed down the years by senior DFSA executives. There was the affable Australian, David Nott, a seasoned regulator but always quick with a joke; Paul Kosta, the dapper Dutchman who saw the DFSA through the worst of the financial crisis; and the incumbent chief executive, Ian Johnston, a Scotsman who has made light of the tragedy that has befallen his football club, Glasgow Rangers.

There was also Jan Bladen, the DFSA chief operating officer who set new sartorial standards at the authority, and is still doing the same as a key part of the team building the Abu Dhabi Global Market.

The sure hand of Abdullah Saleh, one of the founders of National Bank of Dubai and adviser to three Rulers, ran the DFSA as the chairman through the tricky post-crisis recovery phase, before handing over to Saeb Eigner, a financial professional who has also found time to author a book on Middle East art.

The public profile of regulators has changed significantly in the decade. Once regarded as dour and dedicated overseers, virtually plain-clothes financial policemen, the post-crisis environment has transformed them.

One executive recently described them as the “rock stars” of the financial business; just a couple of days ago, the French author of a book about regulators won a Nobel Prize.

So there is lots for DFSA to celebrate. Many happy returns.

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