Barrister Shafqat Aziz

Barrister (of Lincoln's Inn), LLM Corporate Law, LL.B, Accrediated Civil-Commercial Mediator (ADR-ODR International), Writer, Law teacher (LL.B & Bar Training Course)

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Barrister Shafqat Aziz

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Showing posts with the label MiddleEast

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The UAE's exit from OPEC

on May 05, 2026

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Barrister Shafqat

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Fiduciary Duty and Confidentiality in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Picture this: You're a corporate lawyer racing against a deadline to draft a time sensitive legally binding document or a financial accountant analysing balance sheets for a merger deal. Your client, a high profile family-owned business is on the brink of a major merger or acquisition. They share intricate details of their subsidiary assets, family disputes, and strategic vulnerabilities trusting you as their go to professional. To reduce hours off the task, you input lots of confidential details into an AI platform for a summary, or maybe even the first draft. In a data centre thousands of miles away: a polished draft is generated in seconds which would have taken hours, if not days if done manually. But what if, unbeknownst to you, that AI company absorbs every word and later inadvertently reproduces fragments of your client's confidential data when a rival entity queries on a similar scenario or asks for strategy simulations? While not guaranteed, this risk of data memor...

A Tangled mess of Governance Failures : Bangladesh Banking Sector Saga

Bangladesh’s meteoric economic rise over the past two to three decades has been nothing short of impressive, worthy of countless case studies. Its transformation from being dubbed as a bottomless basket to an emerging Asian Tiger has been bolstered by steady, above-average GDP growth, export earnings, and significant poverty reduction. However, beyond this exterior economic façade lies a severely decadent skeleton: the banking sector. The present condition of this vital sector risks eroding all that we have achieved in the past few decades due to mismanagement, rising NPL (Non-Performing Loans), poor corporate governance, weak regulatory oversight, political patronage, dominance of families in bank’s boards: resulting in a sharp erosion of public’s trust in the banking system. This crisis is real, with a drastic deterioration on the horizon. Political Interference At the core of this current crisis is the unchecked influence of majority/ controlling shareholders. These shareholde...

Why Gold and Bitcoin are falling when they should be rising: The war that broke the rulebook

When bombs fall, conventional wisdom says buy gold. So why is everyone selling? The old norm in financial common sense has been: when the world pivots towards chaos, investors flock to “safe” assets such as Gold. In recent years, Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin known as digital gold were also coined as a relatively safer asset. When missiles fly, investors hedge accordingly. Then came February 28, 2026.Within hours of coordinated US and Israeli strikes on Iran triggering the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, something strange happened. Gold, which was trading at all-time highs of $5,600 an ounce, began to fall, not dip. By late March, it was down 17–19%- its worst monthly performance since 1983. Bitcoin, which dipped toward $63,000 on the first weekend, never quite found its footing back. The safe haven playbook, refined over decades of crises, appears to have stopped working. What happened? The short answer: this war broke the rules because it isn't the kind of war gold ...

The Constitutional framework in the French and English legal system

“The following short article seeks to highlight the history and function behind the constitutional framework in the French and English Legal Systems which are considered to be the leading flagbearers and leading examples of the two most prominent legal systems in Civil Law System and the Common Law System respectively. They have been practice for hundreds of years, arguably the Civil Law System can be traced back to the year 527 AD to the times of the Roman Emperor Justinian while the Common Law System can be traced back to 1066 AD to the time of the Norman Conquest. There are some apt differences in these two legal systems which extends to their respective constitutions, sources of laws, functions and duties of the heads of state, and the highest sources of law making bodies in addition to the manner in which international treaties are incorporated into domestic laws by the Civil Law System and Common Law System.” Before analysing and contrasting the constitutional framework bet...

The July National Charter 2025 Simplified

Bangladeshi Bank Mergers: A High-Stakes Gamble

The Banking sector of Bangladesh is at a critical turning point. While the banking sector is showing signs of recovery, the crisis of confidence driven by staggering quantities of non-performing loans (NPLs) paired with major corporate governance failures has overall left the wider financial system bleeding and vulnerable. While the previous government advocated for merging or making banks merger, at one point they threatened to “force” certain banks to merge, most of which were incorporated by a certain class of industrialists to cater to their own business and personal needs. Under the current interim government, those echoes have grown ever stronger as the only solution to save these failing banks by merging them, injecting them with fresh liquidity and the government acquiring a majority control of the shares, etc. While on paper this is a sound plan, the reality check this plan may face on the ground is quite different. If anything, this is a very high stakes gamb...

Bangladesh's Six-Day Workweek: A Crisis Undermining Workers and Growth

Gold price and demand: A metric of global anxiety and fear, not greed

Gold price and demand: A metric of global anxiety and fear, not greed A seismic shift is being witnessed in the global financial landscape currently. This is not happening in the chaotic halls of stock exchanges but rather in the market of a timeless precious metal asset which has, for most of history, held its value: Gold. Gold hit a price of $4,000 per ounce in October 2025. Price of gold is naturally expected to gain and holds its value historically, however the price hitting $4,000 per ounce staggering because it had increased over 50% in a matter of a year alone. Is this surge a bubble waiting to burst or are there rational factors affecting this surge? This surge in price many investors and fund managers in shock as such an occurrence naturally pulled funds away from traditional investments towards gold seen like never before. Naturally, the question may arise: Is this another irrational speculative bubble bound to burst? Historically, in post gold standard era, gold’s...

Evolution of Road Transport and Safety Laws in Bangladesh- “One step forward, two steps backwards?”

Evolution of Road Transport and Safety Laws in Bangladesh- “One step forward, two steps backwards?” Shafqat Aziz [1] “This article seeks to outline the development of Road Transport and Safety Laws in Bangladesh since the times of British India to present day. The long standing statute followed in this area of law has been the Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1983 which has been replaced by the Road Transport Act 2018 which is however yet to be in force due to more bureaucratic and administrative issues than legal. Therefore, despite the new act, road transport and law enforcement authorities still have to rely on the tried and tested Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1983 for now. There has been considerable development in the area of Road Transport Safety Laws in terms of case laws too in the landmark case of Catherine Masud vs. Md Kashed Miah [2] which has set the precedence for future successful claims under the Law of Tort in Bangladeshi courts by the High Court bench of Justice Zinat Ara...

Do we really need Digital Banks in Bangladesh?

Last year, I wanted open a bank account at a well established and popular bank in Bangladesh due their app services. Particularly their ability to seamlessly transfer funds between various Mobile Financial Services (MFS) providers and the option to open a DPS/Fixed Deposits straight from their app. However, being in full time employment at a leading multinational company in Dhaka meant I went to work at well before 9 AM and got out well after 6 PM even on a good day. So, I tried to download their dedicated account opening app from the Google Playstore to open an account from home as it was impossible to go to any of the bank’s branches to submit my account opening form and other supporting documents. Unfortunately, despite trying for over 2 weeks, the app kept crashing and I could not open their conventional current account without visiting their branch 2 months later after I left my full time employment and while I was waiting for my visa to pursue higher education abroad. This is not...