Dubai debt trouble

Tue, 19 May 2009

UK-based recruiters working in the United Arab Emirates have been hit by unpaid fees as developers struggle to raise funding.

Paul Hovington, director at Profile Technical Recruitment, told Recruiter he has faced difficulties collecting money: “We have problems with one client who at the time owed £25k for which payment was due the weekend before the Dubai government made its funding announcement. This was reduced to around £20k and a payment schedule put in place, but to date all scheduled dates have been missed.”

Trade body the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) warned there are “staggering” levels of unpaid fees from UAE developers.

Nelson Ogunshakin, chief executive of ACE, says: “While we welcome the recent £13bn bailout of developers like Nakheel from the Dubai and Abu Dhabi authorities, there remain a number of serious concerns, namely a staggering amount of unpaid fees, which our soundings indicate are about £400m.”

Vivek Gupta, global recruitment consultant at Beresford Blake Thomas, added: “It’s not happening with all the companies. If someone doesn’t pay a fee we will not do any business with them.”