Tort court lawyer attorney Uae

Tort Lawyer in UAE

This page covers civil liability for harm other than bodily injury: damage to reputation, professional negligence, property damage, economic loss, defective goods and misuse of information. Claims arising from physical injury, road accidents, workplace accidents and medical negligence are dealt with separately on our personal injury lawyer page, which covers diya, arsh and the mandatory gateways that apply to those claims.

The framework was rewritten this year. Federal Decree-Law No. 25 of 2025 came into force on 1 June 2026, replacing the 1985 Civil Code in full, and civil liability is one of the areas it changed most.

Tort lawyer in UAE — TrustedLawyers.ae civil liability team

The harmful act principle in UAE civil law explained

One General Rule, Not a List of Torts

The starting point is a single provision: a person who causes harm to another is bound to make it good. Under the new code that principle sits at Article 246, carrying forward the position that has applied here for four decades.

Direct harm and harm by causation

The code distinguishes between harm caused directly and harm caused through an intervening chain. Where the harm is direct, liability follows from the act. Where it is caused by causation rather than directly, fault or an equivalent element must be established. That distinction, preserved at Article 247, does more work in practice than any question about what the wrong should be called.

Why the difference matters to you

Two practical consequences. First, do not assume a claim is unavailable because it does not match a category you recognise. Second, do not assume a claim succeeds because it would in another jurisdiction. The analysis here runs through harm, causation and the code’s own categories, and the pleading has to be built that way from the start.

What Changed on 1 June 2026

Several changes matter, and two of them significantly alter commercial exposure.

Subject	Under the 1985 code	Under the new code
Employer liability for a subordinate	A power the judge could exercise where there was justification	A mandatory, direct liability of the principal
Liability of the guardian of a thing	Applied more narrowly	Strengthened and expressed more clearly, covering things, buildings, machinery and animals
Moral harm to family members	Available on the death of the victim	Extended to incapacity as well as death, for a spouse and relatives to the second degree
Contributory fault and mitigation	Largely judicial practice	Codified, with clearer rules on allocation
Limitation periods	Under the old code	Revised, with some periods shortened and running periods switching over on 1 June 2026

Which code applies depends on when the harmful act occurred. An incident from 2024 is not necessarily analysed under the new provisions, and the transitional position should be settled before a claim is framed.

UAE civil liability changes under the 2026 Civil Code

Mandatory employer liability for employees under UAE law

Employer Liability Is Now Mandatory

This is the most commercially significant change on the page, and many businesses have not registered it.

Under Article 266 of the new code, a principal is liable for harm caused by a subordinate through an act committed in the course of, or because of, their duties. Under the old code this was framed as something the court could order where it saw justification. It is now a direct liability rather than a discretionary one. For any business with staff, drivers, contractors under supervision or site personnel, the exposure is materially firmer than it was in May.

The employer retains a right of recourse against the person who actually caused the harm, under Article 267. In practice that is often of limited value against an individual employee, which is why the practical response is insurance and supervision rather than reliance on recourse.

If you are an employer, three things are worth doing now: check that your liability cover reflects the change, review supervision and training records because they are what the evidence will turn on, and look at whether contractor arrangements create supervision in fact even where the contract says otherwise. If you are a claimant, the employer is now a materially better defendant than the individual.

The Guardian of a Thing

Article 268 of the new code attaches liability to whoever exercises actual control over a thing, describing that person as its guardian, with the owner presumed to be the guardian unless control sits elsewhere. The category covers things generally, and buildings, machinery and animals specifically.

The word to notice is control. Liability does not follow the title deed or the invoice; it follows who was actually in charge of the thing when it caused harm. That catches operators, occupiers, facilities managers, contractors in possession of plant, and anyone who has taken practical control of equipment or premises. It is also why the presumption matters: an owner who says the thing was in someone else’s hands has to establish that, rather than simply assert it.

For businesses this is the second half of the exposure picture alongside employer liability. Between them, the two articles mean that harm caused by your people or by things in your control now attaches to you more readily than it did under the old code.

Liability of the guardian of a thing under the UAE Civil Code

Defamation and moral damages claims in the UAE

Reputation and Moral Harm

Moral harm is expressly recognised. Article 254 treats infringement of another’s freedom, honour, reputation, social standing or financial position as compensable harm, which puts reputational damage squarely inside civil liability rather than at its margins.

There is also a criminal route

Defamation and insult are criminal offences in the UAE, including where committed online under the cybercrime legislation. In practice a complaint to the authorities and a civil claim for compensation can run alongside one another, and the criminal outcome often shapes the civil one. If you are on the receiving end of a complaint rather than making one, that is defence work and sits with our criminal defence lawyer team.

Evidence, before it disappears

Reputational cases are won on capture. Screenshots with visible dates and URLs, the reach of the publication, who saw it, and the consequence you can actually evidence — a lost contract, a withdrawn offer, a cancelled account. Material posted online is frequently deleted within hours of a complaint, and a claim built on recollection is a weak claim.

A word of caution in the other direction

Filing a baseless or exaggerated complaint carries its own exposure, and using the threat of a criminal complaint as commercial leverage is not a strategy we will run. We advise on whether a claim is genuinely available before anything is filed, in both directions.

The Claims We Run

Defamation, insult and reputational harm, including online publication, for claimants and for those defending complaints.
Professional negligence against advisers, consultants, valuers, agents, auditors and other professionals whose work caused loss.
Negligent advice, misstatement and misrepresentation that induced a decision or a transaction.
Property damage, nuisance and interference with the use of land or premises, including damage caused by neighbouring works.
Defective and dangerous goods, against manufacturers, importers and suppliers.
Fraud and deceit pursued civilly for recovery, alongside or instead of a criminal complaint.
Interference with business and unfair competitive conduct causing economic loss.
Misuse of confidential information and personal data, including where information shared in negotiations is used without permission.
Wrongful attachment and abuse of process, where a party has caused loss by improper use of legal procedure.

Civil liability claims handled in the UAE beyond personal injury

Damages recoverable in a UAE civil liability claim

What You Can Actually Recover

Compensation in UAE law is restorative. It puts the injured party, so far as money can, in the position they would have occupied had the harmful act not happened. It does not punish, and there is no equivalent of exemplary or punitive damages.

Actual loss suffered, proved on evidence rather than asserted.
Loss of profit, where it is a normal, direct and foreseeable consequence of the act and the causal link can be established. This is the head most often claimed too widely and awarded too narrowly.
Moral damages for the categories of harm described above.
Reasonable costs incurred in mitigating the harm.

Working against you: remote or speculative loss is not recoverable, loss you could reasonably have avoided will be discounted under the duty to mitigate, and your own contribution to the harm reduces the award proportionately. The new code deals with contributory fault and joint liability more explicitly than the old one did, which cuts both ways but makes the outcome easier to predict.

Contract or Tort?

The same facts frequently give rise to both a contractual claim and a claim in harmful act, and choosing between them is a real strategic decision rather than a formality.

	Contractual claim	Claim in harmful act
Requires	A contract between you and the defendant	No pre-existing relationship
Exclusions	Clauses may cap or exclude liability, within the limits the law allows	Liability for a harmful act cannot simply be excluded by agreement
Recoverable loss	As the contract provides, subject to mandatory rules	Actual loss and direct foreseeable lost profit
Against third parties	Generally not available	Available against anyone who caused the harm
Limitation	The contractual period applies	Its own period runs, from knowledge

The exclusion point deserves emphasis, because it is where a great deal of commercial drafting fails. A limitation of liability clause does not neutralise liability for a harmful act, which is one reason a claimant facing a tightly drafted contract may be better off framing the claim differently. How far a contract can validly limit exposure is dealt with on our contract lawyer page.

Contractual claim compared with a claim in harmful act in the UAE

Limitation periods for civil liability claims in the UAE

The Clock

Claims in harmful act expire, and the position moved this year.

The period generally runs from the date you knew of the harm and of the person responsible, rather than from the act itself.
There is also an outer limit measured from the act, which applies regardless of when you found out.
Several limitation periods were revised by the new Civil Code and some were shortened.
Where a period was already running on 1 June 2026, the new rules took over from that date rather than from the original starting point. Anyone holding an unissued claim under the old regime should have the position checked now rather than assuming the original timetable still applies.

Where a criminal complaint has been made about the same facts, the interaction between the criminal process and the civil limitation period needs checking rather than assuming, because the two do not run in step.

How a Claim Runs

Identifying every liable party

Not only the person who did it. The employer, under the mandatory rule described above, and the guardian of any thing involved. Adding a solvent defendant at the outset is far easier than adding one later, and it is the step most often skipped.

Evidence, immediately

Contemporaneous records, publications captured before deletion, photographs, system logs, correspondence and the paper trail showing what the harm actually cost. UAE proceedings are documentary, and there is no disclosure obligation on the other side to fall back on.

Quantifying the loss

Each head costed and evidenced separately, with lost profit tied to a demonstrable causal chain rather than to a projection. This document determines what a realistic settlement looks like.

Demand and negotiation

A well-evidenced demand resolves a substantial proportion of these matters without proceedings, particularly where an insurer is behind the defendant.

Proceedings

Where no reasonable offer is made, the claim is filed. Onshore procedure runs on written memoranda with a court-appointed expert doing the fact-finding, which is explained on our litigation lawyer page. In liability claims the expert stage is usually where the case is decided.

Recovery

Judgment is followed by execution where payment is not made voluntarily, so that an award becomes money received rather than a document.

Step by step civil liability claim process in the UAE

When to Instruct a Tort Lawyer in UAE

Something published about you or your business has caused real, evidenced loss.

A professional adviser’s work caused you financial harm.

Your property or equipment has been damaged by another party’s activity.

A supplier’s defective product caused loss beyond the value of the product itself.

Confidential information you shared has been used without permission.

You have suffered loss through another party’s improper use of legal process.

You are an employer and a member of your staff has caused harm to a third party.

You hold a potential claim under the old Civil Code and have not checked the limitation position since June 2026.

What It Costs

Court fees are calculated on the value of the claim and capped at Emirate level. Expert costs arise where the loss requires valuation or technical assessment. Legal fees are fixed for defined work such as a demand or an advice on merits, and staged for contested matters.

The question we answer before you commit is not whether the defendant did something wrong. It is whether the loss is recoverable in law, whether it can be proved, and whether the defendant can pay. A claim that fails any one of those three is not worth bringing, and we will say so at the first meeting rather than at the third.

Best tort lawyer in UAE — how TrustedLawyers.ae runs a liability claim

Why Clients Choose TrustedLawyers.ae

Choosing the best tort lawyer in UAE is largely about who identifies the right defendants and prices the loss honestly. What we hold ourselves to:

Every potentially liable party is identified at the outset: the actor, the employer and the guardian of the thing.
Advice reflects the civil liability rules in force since 1 June 2026, including the mandatory employer liability.
Lost profit is pleaded only where it is direct, foreseeable and evidenced, because overclaiming weakens the whole case.
Reputational claims begin with evidence capture, before the material is taken down.
We do not run threat-based strategies, in reputation cases or anywhere else.
The contract and harmful act routes are compared rather than assumed, because exclusion clauses do not reach both.
The limitation position is checked and diarised before strategy is discussed.
You are told when a claim is not worth bringing, before you have paid to bring it.

Where We Act

We act in civil liability matters across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah, before the onshore courts in each Emirate, for claimants and for defendants and their insurers. Overseas clients are handled remotely, with documents reviewed, translations arranged and hearings attended without you needing to travel.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a tort claim in the UAE?+

A claim in harmful act. UAE law states a general principle that a person who causes harm to another must make it good, rather than listing named torts as common law systems do. The principle sits at Article 246 of the Civil Code in force since June 2026.

Is this the same as a personal injury claim?+

Personal injury is one application of the same principle, but it has its own machinery including diya, arsh and mandatory gateways for medical and workplace cases. Those claims are covered on our personal injury page. This page covers civil liability for harm other than bodily injury.

Does UAE law recognise negligence?+

Not as a discrete named tort in the common law sense. The code distinguishes harm caused directly from harm caused by causation, and for the latter fault or an equivalent element must be established. In practice most negligence claims are brought and analysed through that route.

Is my employer liable for what my colleague did?+

Under Article 266 of the new Civil Code, a principal is liable for harm caused by a subordinate acting in the course of, or because of, their duties. This became a mandatory liability on 1 June 2026, where previously it was a discretionary power of the court.

Who is liable for damage caused by equipment or a building?+

Whoever exercises actual control over the thing, described in the code as its guardian, with the owner presumed to be the guardian unless control sat elsewhere. That catches operators, occupiers and contractors in possession, not only registered owners.

Can I claim for damage to my reputation?+

Yes. Infringement of freedom, honour, reputation, social standing or financial position is treated as compensable moral harm. Defamation and insult are also criminal offences here, including online, so a complaint and a civil claim can run alongside one another.

What should I do first if something defamatory is published?+

Capture the evidence before it disappears: screenshots showing the date and URL, the reach of the publication and who saw it, and any consequence you can evidence. Material is frequently deleted within hours of a complaint, and a claim built on recollection is weak.

Are punitive damages available?+

No. Compensation is restorative and aims to put the injured party in the position they would have been in had the act not occurred. There is no equivalent of exemplary or punitive damages.

Can I recover lost profits?+

Where the lost profit is a normal, direct and foreseeable consequence of the act and the causal link is established, yes. Remote or speculative loss is not recoverable, and this is the head most often claimed too widely.

What if I was partly responsible?+

Compensation is reduced in proportion to your contribution. The new Civil Code sets out contributory fault and the duty to mitigate more explicitly than the old one, which makes outcomes easier to predict in both directions.

Can a contract exclude liability for a harmful act?+

Not simply. A limitation or exclusion clause does not neutralise liability for a harmful act, which is one reason a claimant facing a tightly drafted contract may be better off framing the claim in harmful act rather than in contract.

How long do I have to bring a claim?+

The period generally runs from when you knew of the harm and of the person responsible, with an outer limit measured from the act itself. Several periods were revised by the new Civil Code, and periods already running on 1 June 2026 came under the new rules from that date.

Which code applies to my claim?+

It depends on when the harmful act occurred. An incident before 1 June 2026 is not necessarily analysed under the new provisions, and the transitional position should be settled before the claim is framed.

Do you act for defendants?+

Yes. A substantial part of this work is defence, for businesses and their insurers, including on the employer liability and guardian of a thing exposures created by the new code.

How do I start?+

Tell us what happened, when you found out, who you believe is responsible and what it has cost you, with whatever documents you hold. We come back with the liable parties, the recoverable loss, the limitation position and an honest view of whether the claim is worth bringing.

Speak to a Top Tort Lawyer in UAE

If someone has caused you loss, or a claim has been made against you or your business, the early view is the useful one. Tell us what happened, who caused it and what it has cost, and we will identify the liable parties, the loss that is actually recoverable and whether the claim is worth bringing. Book a confidential consultation with the civil liability team at TrustedLawyers.ae today.

Book a consultation with a top tort lawyer in UAE