Saudi civil procedure frequently involves court-appointed experts (khubara) on technical matters — valuation, engineering, accounting — and understanding how to engage with that expert process, including challenging an expert's findings where warranted, is a distinct skill from general advocacy.
Separately, foreign courts or arbitral tribunals sometimes need an expert opinion specifically on a point of Saudi law as part of a foreign proceeding, which is a different but related service. In arbitration specifically, this work integrates with our arbitration practice on both Saudi-seated and foreign-seated matters.
This includes providing formal legal opinions on Saudi law for use in a foreign proceeding, and representing a client's interests in relation to a court-appointed expert's involvement in a domestic Saudi case. Outside a live dispute, comparable written analysis is available through our legal opinions & research service.
Where a court-appointed expert's report seems flawed or incomplete, this practice can advise on the available options to challenge it before it becomes determinative of the case's outcome.
A court-appointed expert's independence doesn't guarantee their report is complete or correct — the underlying inspection may have missed relevant conditions, the methodology applied may not fit the specific facts, or the conclusions may not follow cleanly from the expert's own findings, all of which are legitimate grounds to challenge a report rather than accept it passively as objective fact simply because of its source.
We review expert reports closely for exactly these gaps before deciding whether a challenge is warranted, since a flawed report accepted without scrutiny can end up deciding a case on a foundation that doesn't actually hold up, while a genuinely sound report is generally best left unchallenged rather than contested reflexively.
Foreign courts and arbitral tribunals handling a dispute that touches on Saudi law sometimes need a formal expert opinion specifically addressing how that law applies to the facts at hand — a distinct deliverable from litigation itself, prepared for use as evidence within someone else's proceeding rather than as part of a Saudi case.
We prepare these opinions to the evidentiary standard the requesting court or tribunal expects, working directly with the foreign counsel managing the underlying proceeding to make sure the opinion answers the specific legal questions the case actually turns on. Where the opinion must be filed in Arabic and English, our certified legal translation team produces the matching version.
Saudi courts frequently appoint independent technical experts to assess matters like valuation, engineering defects, or accounting questions that inform the court's decision. We can advise on engaging with this process.
Yes, there are avenues to challenge an expert report that appears flawed or incomplete, though the specific approach depends on the case and the nature of the issue.
Yes, providing formal opinions on Saudi law for use in foreign proceedings is part of this service.
Not automatically — independence doesn't guarantee a report is complete or methodologically sound, and reviewing it closely for gaps is worth doing before deciding whether it's genuinely reliable or worth challenging.
Formal opinions addressing how specific Saudi legal questions apply to a foreign proceeding's facts, prepared to the evidentiary standard the requesting court or tribunal expects.
We review it closely for gaps in methodology, inspection, or conclusions before recommending a challenge — a sound report is generally better left unchallenged than contested reflexively.
Expert Riyadh