Thomson Reuters, a leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, has launched its legal research service, Westlaw Gulf, in Iraq. 

 

Iraq is the third country in the Middle East region, after UAE and Qatar, whose legislation is now available on Westlaw Gulf, said a statement.

 

With the launch, legal professionals from around the world and in the region can consult new sources of reference material and use the latest legal technology from Thomson Reuters to quickly and accurately research Iraqi legislation in English. 

 

Westlaw Iraq is designed to improve the workflow of the individual legal practitioner working on Iraqi legislation, said the statement.

 

The platform offers a Master Gazette Index which is set up to search more than 3,000 Federal and Kurdish pieces of legislation, complete with English translations and links to the original Arabic text. Legislation is sourced from the official Gazette and covers commercial laws spanning from 1922 to the present day, it said.

 

Nadim Najjar, managing director, Middle East, Africa and Russia / CIS, said: “We are glad to announce the launch of the Westlaw Gulf platform in Iraq which includes a consolidated source of Iraqi legislation. The service offers translations of principles from over 200 cases from the Iraqi Court of Cassation covering the most commercially relevant topics.”

 

Mohammed El Belbesi, head of Legal, Mena, Thomson Reuters, said: “Now that Iraqi legislation is on a global platform like Westlaw, it can be disseminated more easily to corporations and potentially to investors, providing greater transparency, supporting business confidence and ultimately contributing to the overall attractiveness of Iraq as a foreign direct investment (FDI) destination.”

 

The key texts of civil, commercial and business laws of Iraq available on the platform cover areas including companies, financial, energy, oil and gas, construction and real estate, employment, foreign investment, intellectual property, tourism, agriculture, judicial and litigation, said the statement.

 

The service includes a market intelligence and insights service through the current awareness newsletter, selecting relevant news from a wide variety of sources and bringing them to the legal researcher’s attention as they happen, it said.

 

All translations are carried out by legal experts and overseen by the in-house legal expert team at Thomson Reuters, all of whom have experience in the local Iraq market and the wider Middle East, it added. - TradeArabia News Service