Thirteen firms win spots on Qatari Diar's inaugural panel

The sovereign property developer has rolled out a 13-firm roster, with six panels covering hotels, construction, finance, corporate, UK projects and international.

Nabarro has won a place on the UK projects and corporate panels, while Norton Rose has been included in the international roster and the finance panel.

Eversheds has won a role on the international panel. A&O has been appointed to the finance, corporate and international panels, with Clifford Chance also expected to have a slot on at least one panel.

Latham & Watkins, Herbert Smith and Berwin Leighton Paisner are also understood to be on the roster, the latter on the UK panel.

Ashurst and Hogan Lovells have a record of working for Qatar Diar and are likely panellists.

Norton Rose’s appointment, meanwhile, is understood to be a new client win, with the firm previously only acting on the other side of the company’s deals.

No firms have been admitted to more than three panels, with appointments effective from 1 April.

Lusail-based Qatari Diar said it invited 46 firms to pitch for places in its largest-ever tender process, run by general counsel Andrew Walsh, who joined last year from Speechly Bircham (13 June 2011).

The six-year old company launched the process late last year, with submissions due in January and pitches taking place in Doha in late February (15 December 2011).

Group CEO Mohammed bin Ali Al Hedfa said in a statement: “Qatari Diar was impressed by the high quality of the proposals received from the firms which participated. Having prior knowledge and experience of Qatar and the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] as well as the sectors and other regions we work in were essential in the selection of firms and is crucial to Qatari Diar’s vision of making a positive impact and improving the quality of lives in the communities we are serving.”

Qatari Diar said it currently has over 49 projects on the go in 29 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with the deals totalling more than $35bn (£22.1bn) in value.