Ajai Ramakrishnan

Ajai is a Senior Counsel in the Banking & Finance team in Dubai.

Ajai is a dual-qualified lawyer whose professional experience encompasses a wide range of banking and finance matters.

Ajai’s practice covers banking transactional work, including the structuring and documentation of conventional and Islamic financing transactions across industries and sectors and banking regulatory work, which includes advising and counselling financial institutions, corporates and start-ups in relation to financial regulatory matters, including those relating to cryptocurrencies and other virtual assets. Ajai has extensive experience dealing with cross-border financing transactions and financial regulatory work in a multitude of jurisdictions, including the GCC, Singapore, India, and Indonesia.

Prior to joining Hadef & Partners, Ajai worked at Magic Circle and top-tier law firms in private practice, as well as in-house at Emirates NBD Bank and Etihad Airways.

Having worked in both private practice and in-house roles, Ajai regularly acts for a diverse range of financial institutions, corporates, borrowers, and sponsors. He represents clients on both the lender and borrower sides of financing transactions across a variety of industry sectors.

Ajai holds an honours degree in law from the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research University of Law, Hyderabad. Ajai is admitted as a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and is also admitted to practice law in India. Ajai is registered with the Dubai Legal Affairs Department as a Legal Consultant.

Admissions

• Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales
• Bar Council of Delhi, India

• Advising the international sponsors in connection with the US$3.9 billion Project Lightning, an undersea high voltage DC pipeline between onshore Abu Dhabi and offshore electricity stations.
• Advising the joint bookrunners, lenders and local security agent in connection with the €1.4 billion equivalent syndicated debt financing for Delivery Hero.
• Advising AMEA Power in connection with two financings (aggregating approximately USD 1.1 billion) for the establishment of a solar power project (Abydos) in the Aswan Governorate in Egypt and Egypt's largest wind power project, a 505MW wind farm in the Red Sea Governorate in Egypt (Amunet).
• Providing legal and regulatory advice to a leading global private bank with respect to the provision by such bank of international wealth management services  (such as dealing in securities, bonds, funds and foreign exchange, trading in structured products and derivatives, securities lending and borrowing, dual currency investments, providing recommendations and financial advice on investment products, discretionary and non-discretionary fund portfolio management and accepting deposits and providing loans) to its target clients, being mostly high net worth individuals or private investment companies or related entities.
• Acting for and advising a multilateral development finance institution, in relation to a secured financing for one of Africa’s largest renewable energy providers.
• Advising on, and preparing template documentation (both conventional and Islamic) for, a leading UAE bank to enable such bank to issue guarantees to other commercial banks to support borrowings and other credit facilities that are obtained by SME entities for term loan and working capital purposes.
• Managed a project to condense and overhaul the standard internal loan and security documentation for Emirates NBD.
• Acting for and advising Etihad Airways in connection with multiple aircraft sale and purchase and financing transactions.
• Acted for and advised several start-up and established airlines in connection with aircraft purchase, financing and refinancing transactions.