Job Description

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Debt Recovery Officer to action and supervise provision of a professional pre-litigation debt recovery for Clyde & Co LLP across the MENA region and when required, globally.

Our DRO will support the growth of the Debt Recovery practice in MEA by growing the recoveries portfolio domestically and internationally.

This role will also support the Regional Finance Group in the MEA region to improve collections of bad debts, by carrying out debt recovery procedures through litigation & pre-litigation, including debtors' meetings, site visits and skip tracing.

The Team

Our debt recovery team has many years' experience acting as counsel for IATA, including its member airlines, against major clearing banks over liability to account for trust monies arising from ticket sales, as well as for related debt recovery actions, and asset tracing, against defaulting travel agents.

We also have wide experience in debt recovery actions (including asset seizures and bankruptcy proceedings), across multiple jurisdictions including Afghanistan, Bahrain, Dubai, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Mainland China, Moldova, Philippines, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, UAE, UK, Ukraine and the US.

Key responsibilities

• Keep track of assigned accounts to identify outstanding debts.
• Plan course of action to recover outstanding payments.
• Locate and contact debtors to inquire of their payment status.
• Negotiate payoff deadlines or payment plans.
• Drafting legal notices, agreements, demands and claim forms.
• Handle questions or complaints, investigate queries and resolve discrepancies.
• Create trust relationships with debtors, when possible, to avoid future issues.
• Update account status and database regularly.
• Alert superiors of debtors unwilling or unable to pay when necessary.
• Comply with the firm and the SRA policies, procedures, and risk requirements when legal action is unavoidable.
• Reviewing matter documentation (all aspects of documents) to assess issues, deliverables, disputes, risk and liability and judge recoverability.
• Using knowledge and initiatives to reach amicable solutions to settling debts on behalf of the firm, considering circumstances of the matter and any risk possibility incurs.
• Developing recovery strategy in collaborations with the partners for achieving recoveries.
• Reliably flexible to commute.
• Apply payments and perform allocations of the paid invoices to client accounts as necessary.
• Will work with Credit, collections, billing, and other internal teams as it relates to cash application process.
• Prepare and circulate collection report(s) on daily basis.

Candidate Requirements

• Graduate of BSC Accounting, Finance or equivalent.
• UAE National, with proof of family book.
• Must have at least 2-year experience in Accounts Receivables, Credit Control and Debt Recovery, preferably within the banking/professional services industry.
• Compliant with relevant experience of recovery practice and laws.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral; multi-lingual is a must (English & Arabic)
• Proactive approach and an ability to deal with debtors appropriately;
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work with all levels of seniority and designations.
• Strong commercial acumen.

Additional Skills and Abilities

• Strong listening and attention to detail skills.
• Results focused.
• Creative problem solver.
• Ethical and fair negotiator

Please note, we are only accepting applications from UAE Nationals for this vacancy.

Clyde & Co

Clyde & Co is a global law firm which has quadrupled in size over the past decade.Revenues from the firm's 50+ offices* worldwide rose to 627million for the last financial year.The firm has over 1800 fee earners, across six continents, with 4000 staff advising corporates, financial institutions, private individuals and governments.

Clyde & Co in the Middle East and Africa

With over 30 years' experience in the region and the largest presence of any international law firm in the Middle East, we pride ourselves on being able to help clients recognize and overcome the challenges of doing business in the Middle East and Africa.

In the Middle East, our more than 40 partners and 150 legal professionals work from four offices located across the region. Our Dubai office acts as a central hub for our Middle East and Africa regional operations that include, in the Middle East, offices in Abu Dhabi in the UAE, Doha in Qatar and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Our large regional presence enables us to support our clients across the full spectrum of their corporate and commercial needs throughout the AGCC (Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf) and wider Levant.

Our deep sector knowledge covers insurance, energy, transport, infrastructure, marine and trade as well as aviation, education, defense, finance, healthcare, hospitality and technology.