IslamicFinance.de

The standoff between Dana Gas PJSC and its bondholders carries on after the company that’s trying to void $700 million of its own debt was said to believe investors may even have to pay the company.
Dana Gas says a court battle with holders of the Islamic securities, or sukuk, may see it having to return less than 10 % of the amount it borrowed. In a second scenario, it believes creditors may have to pay it as much as $150 million, and that the case may last more than 10 years. The Gas company had announced plans to restructure the debt in May, this week retracted an offer to replace the bonds and is pursuing a resolution in court. It said in June the debt was no longer Sharia-compliant. Investors questioned the validity of the claim since neither sukuk regulations nor UAE laws governing the matter have changed since they were issued in 2013.

The plan to create national Shariah boards to oversee sukuk sales is drawing criticism from bankers and lawyers who say the groups would increase bureaucracy in the $1 trillion Islamic finance industry.
The Accounting & Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions, a leading global regulator, is in the final stages of a plan recommending governments appoint panels of scholars and experts at the national level to rule whether products comply with the religion’s tenets, Mohamad Nedal Alchaar, secretary-general of the Manama, Bahrain-based body, said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 26. The proposal will be submitted early next year.
The regulator says such a system will help clarify standards and bolster investor confidence in an industry whose assets are forecast by the Kuala Lumpur-based Islamic Financial Services Board to almost triple to $2.8 trillion by 2015. The changes risk adding bureaucratic hurdles and slowing approvals at a time when sales are down 19 percent this year, according to CIMB-Principal Islamic Asset Management Sdn. and Atlanta-based law firm King & Spalding LLP.