A claim can survive a first-instance judgment and an appeal and still be undone at the last. Acting for the defendant in this Dubai matter, we carried a single point through every instance — that a technical dispute demands a technical expert — to the Court of Cassation, and won. A supplier that had sued for about AED 2 million, and secured a six-figure award below, was left with a claim worth only a modest five-figure sum once the account was reworked by the right experts. The judgment is a study in the discipline of proof: the correct expertise, the primacy of the record, and the unforgiving arithmetic of payments already made.
At a glance
- Forum. Dubai Court of Appeal, on remand from the Court of Cassation (first instance, appeal, cassation and re-hearing).
- Result. A claim of about AED 2 million, and a six-figure award below, reduced on the final re-hearing to a modest five-figure balance, with interest at the statutory 5%.
- The winning point. Whether contracted technical works were in fact delivered is a technical question; deciding it on an accountant’s report and a completion certificate alone was a deficiency in reasoning — and grounds for cassation.
- Why it matters. The right expertise, the counterparty’s own credit notes, and payments of record can dismantle an inflated claim more completely than argument on the merits.
1. The claim and the three purchase orders
An IT services company had supplied, installed and integrated server equipment for our client, an electronics and technology company, under three purchase orders: two for hardware supply and integration across some 85 sites, and a third for two support engineers for a year. It invoiced about AED 3 million in total and sued for a balance of about AED 2.1 million, with 12% interest.
2. First instance, and a first appeal, put the figure too high
At first instance a court-appointed accounting expert set the claimant’s ledgers aside as unreliable and, relying on the purchase orders, bank transfers and a signed completion certificate, fixed the sum due at a six-figure figure — far below the claim, but, as events proved, still too high. Interest was cut from the 12% claimed to the statutory 5%. Our client’s appeal was, at that first stage, dismissed and the six-figure award upheld.
3. The turning point: the Court of Cassation requires a technical expert
Our client took the matter to the Court of Cassation, and won. The Cassation Court held that the courts below had erred: the defendant had consistently pressed for a technical expert to test whether all of the contracted works had in fact been completed, and to decide that question on an accountant’s report and a completion certificate alone was a deficiency in reasoning. The appeal judgment was quashed and the case sent back.
The lesson is precise: whether technical works were actually performed is a technical question. An accounting expert can add up invoices, but cannot verify engineering delivery. Insisting on the correct discipline — and preserving the point through every instance — is what opened the door to cassation.
4. On remand: a technical and accounting re-examination
The Court of Appeal, on remand, appointed a fresh panel — a technical expert alongside a new accounting expert — to re-run the whole mandate. Their recomputation is where the claim finally unravelled. Taking the true value of the supplies and services actually delivered, then crediting our client’s bank payments of about AED 2.5 million and the credit notes the supplier itself had issued, the balance outstanding was a modest five-figure sum.
5. How the balance shrank — three moving parts
- Payments already made. Our client had paid the great bulk of the invoiced value by bank transfer — a matter of record, not dispute.
- The supplier's own credit notes. The supplier had issued tax credit notes reducing its own invoices; having put those into the account, it could not then reclaim the same amounts as though still owing.
- The abandoned support order. On the third purchase order — monthly support engineers — the service was stopped after the second invoice and the supplier issued no further monthly invoices, which the panel treated as acceptance that the order was not carried through. Only the support actually provided was counted.
6. The completion certificate — and a clerical slip that led nowhere
The signed completion certificate confirmed performance of the first two orders, and the technical expert agreed. Our client pointed out that the certificate cited a purchase-order number one digit different from the real one; the court treated that as an obvious clerical error, since the matching price quotation tied the certificate to the correct order and no other order with that number existed. The certificate did its work — but only for the two orders it actually covered, not the abandoned third.
7. Points that did not carry — and one that finally did
For completeness, some of the defence’s procedural criticisms were rejected along the way: the court declined to treat a privately commissioned consultant report as displacing the court experts, held that an expert need not visit the parties’ premises, and dismissed a challenge to the claimant’s power of attorney (signed by the shareholder rather than the manager) as no business of the opponent. But the argument that mattered — that a technical expert was indispensable — is the one that carried the day on cassation and delivered the result.
Comment
The enduring value of this decision is not the figure but the method. Claimants routinely seek to prove technical performance through commercial documents — an invoice run, a signed certificate, a reconciled ledger. Those instruments establish what was billed; they do not establish what was built. Where the two diverge, the Court of Cassation has now confirmed that a court cannot bridge the gap by inference: it must put the technical question to a technical expert.
For defendants, the practical discipline is threefold — identify the expertise the dispute truly requires, press for it from the first hearing, and preserve the objection so that it survives to cassation. For claimants, the lesson is the mirror image: a claim assembled on paper, without independent verification of delivery, is vulnerable however large the invoices. In both cases the record governs, and payments and credit notes are counted before the argument begins.
Practical takeaways
- Match the expert to the question. A dispute about whether technical works were delivered needs a technical expert; an accountant cannot answer it, and saying so can be a cassation point.
- Preserve the objection at every stage. Cassation vindicated a request the defendant had pressed from the outset.
- A completion certificate proves only what it covers — here, two of three orders. Do not let it be read across to work it never addressed.
- Build the account from records: payments made and the counterparty’s own credit notes can erase most of a claim before any argument on the merits.
- Where a service is stopped and no further invoices issue, that silence can be read as acceptance that the order lapsed.
- Expect the statutory 5% in Dubai, not the higher rate a claimant pleads.
Sources & citations
- Judgment: Commercial Appeal 1878/2025 (after Cassation 1515/2025; first instance 62/2025) (Dubai Court of Appeal — Commercial Division (on remand from the Court of Cassation)). Dubai Court of Appeal judgment of 29 July 2026 in Commercial Appeal 1878/2025, given on remand after the Court of Cassation quashed the earlier appeal judgment (Cassation 1515/2025, 25 November 2025); first instance 62/2025 (29 May 2025). Certified copies are on file with the firm. See the ADGM Courts judgments database.
Rules & practice directions cited
- UAE Evidence Law (Civil & Commercial Transactions) — Art. 1 (burden of proof)
- UAE Civil Transactions Law — Arts. 113, 246, 380
- UAE Civil Procedure Law (Decree-Law 42/2022) — Arts. 133, 135, 170 (costs)
- Dubai Courts — court of record
This case note is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice on an ADGM debt-recovery, enforcement or set-aside matter, please contact us. Last updated: 29 July 2026.