In the three or four years before the global financial crisis took hold, Islamic finance was the practice area du jour in the Persian Gulf states.
Lawyers at global and local law firms alike attempted to show off their credentials by getting on board a selection of Islamic scholars, many of whom had spent most of their careers until then in relative academic obscurity.
For many global firms this was especially ironic, as until they had opened their offices in Dubai or Abu Dhabi most of their senior partners would have struggled to spell the word sukuk, let alone know that it is an Islamic bond.
The CVs of the two editors of this volume go a long way towards illustrating their authority on this labyrinthine subject, however.
Craig Nethercott is a partner at Los Angeles-headquartered global firm Latham & Watkins and was recently named a leading lawyer in the field by Islamic Finance News. David Eisenberg, head of telecommunications at New York-based White & Case, aided in putting together the largest-ever syndicated Islamic loan.
In this book, the two promise to deliver their readers ‘an international perspective to reflect the pan-global nature of the industry and accepted practices’ of Islamic finance transactions. The editors also aim to bring together different schools of thought applied in international Islamic financial transactions.
If the description of its international perspective fails to convince potential readers of the book’s global nature, the inclusion of Islamic finance transactional standards within the Gulf states, Asia, Europe, UK and US, for the purpose of comparison, should establish its worldliness.