General

The Al Ain Civil, Commercial and Administrative Cases Court has ordered a typing centre to pay a woman Dh12,200 after it delayed processing her residency visa renewal, causing her to incur significant overstay fines.

Court records show that the woman filed a lawsuit against the typing centre, seeking a refund of the amount she had paid for her residency renewal, along with Dh10,000 in compensation for the material and moral damages she suffered.

The plaintiff said she had been living in the UAE and approached the typing centre to begin the renewal process as her residency visa was close to expiring. She paid the required fee and entrusted the centre with completing the procedures.

However, the typing centre failed to carry out its obligations on time, resulting in the accumulation of fines amounting to Dh15,700.

Arguing that the delay caused her financial loss and personal hardship, she sought compensation and requested that the typing office bear the legal costs.

The court ruled in her favour, ordering the typing centre to pay Dh12,200, covering the refund and compensation for the damages caused by the delay.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed 64 civil denaturalisation cases so far during President Donald Trump’s second term. Legal advocacy group Democracy Forward places the number even higher at 69, including 33 in June alone, based on its own analysis.

The surge reflects coordinated efforts by the DOJ’s Civil Division, US Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to expand the rarely used process of denaturalisation — a measure historically reserved for serious offences such as war crimes, threats to national security and violent crimes.

The administration aims to file at least 250 cases by October, according to a DOJ spokesperson. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) spokesman Zach Kahler said the agency, part of DHS, is working with the DOJ to “aggressively pursue and recommend denaturalisation” of anyone who obtained citizenship through fraud.

However, former DOJ and DHS lawyers say the current pace may be difficult to sustain, pointing out that federal law limits denaturalisation to conduct that casts doubt on an individual’s “good moral character” at the time they were naturalised.

Combined with mounting immigration-related caseloads for DOJ lawyers, this makes it unlikely that the denaturalisation campaign will affect a significant share of the estimated 24 million naturalised citizens living in the US, former government attorneys said.

“It’s going to be very difficult to meet those goals, especially if the government wants to bring only strong cases, which require substantial work,” said George Fishman, a former DHS deputy general counsel.

While most of the cases filed so far align with priorities pursued under previous administrations, some involve allegations and convictions linked to money laundering and financial fraud, raising concerns among immigration rights advocates about the scope of future targets.

Trump administration officials have pledged a broad approach to investigating fraud among naturalised citizens, making it a formal priority in a 2025 Civil Division memo.

Enforcement Priorities

The government has filed more denaturalisation cases this year than in any single year of Trump’s first term, and at a faster pace than the average of 11 cases a year recorded between 1990 and 2017. Many of those targeted recently have been US citizens for decades, with some naturalised as far back as 1978.

This suggests the administration is exercising broader discretion over who can face denaturalisation, said Ramya Reddy.

Under federal immigration law, naturalised citizens can lose their citizenship for “concealment” or “wilful misrepresentation” of a “material fact” that would otherwise have prevented them from being granted citizenship. There is no statute of limitations on such cases.

Of the cases filed during Trump’s second term, at least nine have resulted in denaturalisation rulings, according to Democracy Forward’s analysis. One is currently under appeal. Many involve individuals who committed crimes before becoming citizens and were later convicted.

“The government is most likely to focus on the low-hanging fruit — people with serious convictions, recent offences or other easily identifiable issues that make them straightforward enforcement targets,” said Nancy Canter.

Legal and Practical Constraints

Former government lawyers say decades of legal precedent on citizenship rights, combined with limited resources at federal agencies, will restrict how far the Trump administration can push its denaturalisation agenda.

The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly ruled that naturalised citizens must be treated in law the same as those born in the US, said Margy O’Herron.

In 1967, the court ruled that the government could not forcibly strip citizenship without consent, except where it had been “unlawfully procured”. In 2017, it further ruled that minor misrepresentations by citizenship applicants could not serve as grounds for denaturalisation.

Resource shortages at both the DOJ and DHS are another obstacle, said David McConnell.

That office has reportedly lost nearly a third of its attorneys since January 2025, while US Attorneys’ Offices have seen a wave of departures by career lawyers. These exits come as both the immigration litigation office and federal prosecutors face a record number of constitutional challenges brought by detained immigrants.

Fears Over Future Expansion

Despite these limitations, immigration advocates fear the DOJ could begin filing more cases based on conduct that occurred after an individual became a US citizen.

At least two cases filed this year involve individuals accused of supporting designated terrorist organisations after naturalisation. These cases rely on a provision allowing denaturalisation for anyone who becomes affiliated with a terrorist group, the Communist Party or a totalitarian party within five years of gaining citizenship.

The limited case law surrounding post-naturalisation conduct has fuelled concerns that the Trump administration may attempt to broaden its legal strategy, creating what advocates say could amount to a distinction between naturalised and US-born Americans.

Elizabeth Taufa said such a move could fundamentally alter how citizenship protections are interpreted.

Fishman said the government stands a better chance of succeeding in cases involving misrepresentation or actions taken before naturalisation, but noted there is “no particular bar” to using post-naturalisation conduct as evidence of a person’s character at the time they became a citizen.

Meanwhile, Eric Schmitt has introduced legislation that would allow the government to denaturalise individuals convicted of aggravated felonies or other serious offences up to 10 years after naturalisation.

The bill has yet to advance in the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow majority.

As Dubai advances its ambition to become one of the world’s top three economic cities, efficient dispute resolution is becoming an increasingly important pillar of the infrastructure that underpins business confidence, investment and growth.

The DIFC Courts Mediation Service Centre supports this objective by expanding the range of dispute resolution options available through the DIFC Courts. It offers businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals a confidential, cost-effective and practical route to settlement where mediation is appropriate.

Despite suffering some major legal defeats, the US Supreme Court has largely reinforced President Donald Trump’s expansive view of executive power, capping a term marked by high-stakes rulings on immigration, regulation and constitutional authority.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court dealt Trump a significant blow by rejecting his effort to narrow the scope of birthright citizenship, ruling that children born in the United States remain citizens under the 14th Amendment regardless of their parents’ immigration status. But just a day earlier, the court handed him a landmark victory, granting powers that dissenting justices said even English monarchs did not possess.

The country’s highest court issued decisions on Tuesday in three major cases, bringing to a close another consequential nine-month term dominated by legal disputes involving Trump and his administration.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, handed Trump three major setbacks during the term — on tariffs, birthright citizenship and his attempt to dismiss a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Yet it also repeatedly endorsed his aggressive use of executive authority, significantly expanding the powers of the presidency.

“The Trump administration has pushed a robust vision of executive power, which the court has largely embraced,” said George Mason University law professor Robert Luther III.

‘Serious Disruption’

In his second term, Trump has sought to widen presidential powers in both domestic and foreign policy, triggering a series of legal challenges.

When these cases reached the Supreme Court, the justices generally showed considerable deference, avoiding direct confrontation with the norm-breaking president except where his claims of executive power stretched beyond conventional legal boundaries.

“The exceptions to that general trend are cases in which the president’s position was so far removed from any conceivable legal justification that the Supreme Court was unwilling to go that far, or where it feared serious disruption to markets or the broader economy,” said Jenny Breen of the Syracuse University College of Law.

This term’s docket featured an unusually high number of cases involving the president, many decided through the court’s so-called “shadow docket” — emergency rulings issued without full briefing, oral arguments or detailed reasoning.

In these emergency cases, the conservative majority frequently sided with Trump, allowing his administration to press ahead with major policies while lower courts continued to review their legality.

These included permitting aggressive immigration raids targeting individuals based on race or language, cutting National Institutes of Health grants linked to racial minorities or LGBT communities, and restricting passport applicants from selecting a sex aligned with their gender identity.

Beyond the emergency docket, the court also ruled in Trump’s favour through its standard deliberative process, particularly on immigration and national security matters, areas where the judiciary has historically granted presidents wide discretion.

Last week, the court’s conservative bloc delivered three more victories to Trump, making it easier to deport migrants or deny them entry, including some with legal status. One of those rulings allowed the administration to strip humanitarian protections from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants.

Humphrey’s Executor Overturned

On Monday, the court’s conservatives delivered what legal experts described as one of the most consequential rulings on presidential authority in its history.

In a watershed decision, the court allowed Trump to remove leaders of independent federal regulatory agencies, overturning the 1935 precedent set in Humphrey's Executor v. United States, which had protected such officials from being dismissed at will.

The ruling marked a long-standing goal of the conservative legal movement, which has argued that executive authority should remain firmly under presidential control.

Critics, however, warned that the decision could deepen political influence over federal agencies that Congress had intended to remain independent and guided by non-partisan expertise.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the ruling granted the president extraordinary powers.

“The court gives the president a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted,” she wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Gautam Hans of Cornell Law School said the decision reflected “the triumph of decades of conservative advocacy”.

“Whatever losses the administration has had, they are probably quite happy with that prize,” Hans said.

Adopting Trump’s Legal Positions

Legal experts also noted that the court adopted the Trump administration’s arguments in several major cases where the president was not a direct party, but instead intervened as an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court”.

One such case came in April, when the court weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it harder for minority communities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory.

The ruling opened the door for Republican-led Southern states to redraw majority-Black and majority-Latino districts ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Major Losses Remain

Despite the broad support Trump received from the court, two major defeats highlighted the limits of judicial deference, particularly in matters affecting the economy.

In February, the court struck down Trump’s sweeping global tariff regime in a 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, saying the law he invoked was intended only for genuine national emergencies.

Trump responded angrily, publicly criticising the justices who ruled against him, including his own appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

In another setback, the court on Monday refused to allow Trump to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, preserving the independence of the US central bank.

Even so, Trump’s overall record before the court at the midpoint of his second term appears far stronger than that of his predecessor, Joe Biden, whose administration suffered a series of major defeats before the same bench.

“This court had essentially the same composition during President Biden’s term, but was more willing to rule against his major assertions of executive power,” Breen said. “Every case is different, but the contrast is striking.”

The Commercial Court in Dubai has ordered a company to pay $588,000 (Dh2.15 million) to a chemical supplier, along with 5 per cent annual interest from October 2023 until full settlement, in addition to court fees, expenses and legal costs.

The ruling came after the court found that the supplier had fulfilled its contractual obligations by shipping and delivering the agreed chemical materials, but had not received the full payment.

The dispute dates back to a lawsuit filed by the supplier against two companies, seeking the recovery of outstanding dues amounting to $588,000. The amount represented the balance payable for chemical supplies shipped to an Arab country under purchase orders worth a total of $925,920.

Court records showed that one of the companies had issued a written guarantee before the commercial relationship began, acknowledging responsibility for the obligations of the other company and undertaking to settle any unpaid invoices if it failed to do so.

The supplier maintained that it had delivered the agreed materials and issued all related invoices in line with the contract.

During the proceedings, the representative of one of the companies challenged the Dubai court’s international jurisdiction and argued that the supplied goods were defective and had later been destroyed.

To examine the claims, the court appointed an expert, whose report confirmed that the supplier had fully performed its obligations. The report found that the chemical materials were shipped, delivered and received without any objection at the time of delivery.

It also established that there had been correspondence between the parties, including explicit acknowledgements of the debt and partial payments. According to the report, the total value of supplies stood at $925,920, of which $337,858 had been paid, leaving an outstanding balance of $588,062.

The court rejected the jurisdictional challenge, holding that part of the contract had been executed in Dubai since the goods were shipped from the emirate to a destination outside the UAE, giving the UAE courts authority to hear the matter.

It also dismissed the claim that the goods did not meet specifications, noting that the shipments had been accepted without objection in 2023, while the destruction reports submitted as evidence were prepared nearly two years later, undermining the allegation of defects at the time of delivery.

At the same time, the court ruled that there was no legal standing against the first company after it was established that it had been struck off and its commercial registration had been cancelled before the lawsuit was filed, meaning it no longer had legal existence at the time of the proceedings.

The Supreme Court of the United States on Monday declined to hear President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn a $5 million verdict awarded to E. Jean Carroll in a case where a jury found him liable for sexually abusing the former magazine columnist and subsequently defaming her.

The justices rejected Trump’s appeal after a lower court upheld the 2023 jury verdict and dismissed his arguments that the trial had been unfair because the judge improperly allowed jurors to hear evidence relating to his alleged past sexual misconduct.

Trump has been battling Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle, since she published an excerpt from her memoir in 2019 alleging that Trump raped her around 1996 in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan. Trump denied the allegations, insisting she had fabricated the claims both in 2019 while he was serving his first term as president, and again in 2022 after leaving office.

Trump expressed disappointment at the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the appeal and described Carroll’s lawsuit as a “fake case”.

“I will continue the fight against this weaponisation and lawfare case against me, including the ridiculous defamation claim, with all of my power and strength. This case is really against the United States of America, and all it stands for, and should never be allowed to happen to another president or candidate,” Trump wrote on social media.

“This woman is not my type!” he added.

Carroll sued Trump in federal court in Manhattan. In 2023, jurors found that Trump had sexually abused and defamed her, awarding $5 million in damages. However, they did not find that he had raped her, as she had alleged.

The Manhattan-based United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the verdict in 2024, ruling that evidence, including the infamous “Access Hollywood” video that surfaced during the 2016 US presidential campaign, demonstrated a “repeated, idiosyncratic pattern of conduct” consistent with Carroll’s allegations.

Trump’s lawyers told the Supreme Court that the trial judge had “erroneously allowed testimony about multiple decades-old, unverified and unrelated allegations” to be presented to the jury, in violation of federal evidentiary rules.

“Carroll waited more than 20 years to falsely accuse Donald Trump, whom she politically opposes, until after he became the 45th president, when she could maximise political injury to him and profit for herself,” his lawyers argued in court filings.

In a separate case, the 2nd Circuit this year also declined to overturn an $83.3 million verdict awarded to Carroll after a jury found Trump liable for defaming her in 2019 when he first denied her allegations and accused her of fabricating the claims to boost book sales.

A Sharjah misdemeanour court has sentenced an Asian worker to one month in prison for assaulting his supervisor during a dispute over a salary increase and annual leave, with the conviction later upheld on appeal.

According to court records reported by Al Khaleej, the supervisor lodged a complaint accusing the employee of assault and threats after being told the company could not approve his pay rise request due to prevailing business conditions and asked him to defer it. The worker had also requested annual leave.

The supervisor told the court that the employee became enraged after both requests were turned down and physically attacked him, leaving him with injuries to his head and face.

After examining the case, the Sharjah Misdemeanour Court handed down a one-month jail term. The worker challenged the ruling, but the appellate court rejected the appeal and upheld the original sentence.

The closely divided US Supreme Court has reinforced the Federal Reserve’s independence from the White House, protecting its governors from being dismissed by the president without proof of wrongdoing.

The decision came even as the court, in a separate ruling on Monday, widened presidential authority to remove senior officials at other federal agencies, overturning a 91-year-old precedent in a major constitutional shift.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in office while she challenges President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove her over unproven mortgage fraud allegations. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts pointed to the long-standing tradition of preserving the Fed’s independence in exercising monetary policy.

“Congress limited the president’s power to remove governors for good reason,” Roberts wrote. He and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s three liberal justices in the majority.

The justices also faulted Trump for failing to provide Cook with notice and an opportunity to respond before seeking her removal. However, the court stopped short of deciding whether the allegations, if proven, would justify removing her during her 14-year term.

Narrow Ruling

Roberts stressed that the court was ruling on “narrow grounds”, leaving open the possibility of Trump trying again to remove Cook if he chooses. That limited scope means the case could return to the Supreme Court at a later stage.

Cook said the ruling reaffirmed a principle that has guided US economic stewardship for generations: that the Federal Reserve must make policy decisions based on evidence and independent judgement, free from political interference.

Trump, meanwhile, wrote on social media that his administration would “take appropriate action immediately” to ensure that anyone found guilty of wrongdoing would not be making vital decisions concerning the welfare of the United States.

The administration has accused Cook of fraudulently listing homes in Michigan and Georgia as her “primary residence” to secure better mortgage terms in 2021. Cook has dismissed the claims as baseless, saying they rely on “cherry-picked, incomplete snippets” of documents. She has not been charged with any offence.

The case tested the Supreme Court’s commitment to the central bank’s autonomy. While the court had previously moved to shield the Fed from Trump’s attempts to assert greater control, the Cook case introduced fresh legal questions.

Kathryn Judge, a law professor at Columbia University, said the ruling was “good news but not great news” for Federal Reserve independence, adding that it raised questions over how durable that independence would remain.

The narrow margin also exposed divisions within the court. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett dissented on different grounds.

Thomas, writing separately, argued that the Fed’s regulatory functions are executive powers that should fall under presidential authority. He described the ruling as “an unprecedented incursion on the executive branch”. Barrett, meanwhile, said the constitutional status of the Federal Reserve was beyond the scope of the case.

In a concurring opinion, Kavanaugh warned that even temporary uncertainty over the Fed’s status could trigger political upheaval and economic turbulence in both the US and global markets.

FTC Ruling

In the second case, the court ruled that Trump could dismiss Democratic Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission despite legal protections limiting removals to specified grounds. Roberts said the Fed remained distinct from other agencies because of its central role in setting monetary policy.

A victory for Trump in the Cook case could have paved the way for him to remove other Fed governors who resisted his calls for interest-rate cuts, potentially allowing him to reshape the central bank. Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of dismissing Jerome Powell, who continues to serve on the Fed’s Board of Governors even after his term as chair ended.

The ruling comes less than two weeks after Fed officials concluded their first policy meeting under new chair Kevin Warsh. Despite sustained pressure from Trump to cut rates, the Fed left its benchmark interest rate unchanged. Recent inflationary pressures have raised concerns among officials that borrowing costs may need to rise further in the months ahead.

The Sharjah Misdemeanour Court is hearing a case involving the alleged assault of an Asian resident by his roommate following a dispute over noise inside their shared accommodation.

According to court proceedings, the incident occurred while the complainant was attempting to rest but was unable to do so because of the loud noise allegedly made by his roommate late at night.

The complainant said he approached his roommate and asked him to lower the noise and allow him to sleep. The situation, however, escalated, with the accused allegedly attacking him with a chair in front of several witnesses inside the accommodation.

The victim sustained injuries to his head and other parts of his body, prompting him to file a complaint and pursue legal action.

When questioned before the court on charges of assault and causing bodily harm, the accused denied the allegations, claiming the incident was merely a verbal altercation.

The court has adjourned the case to a later date and ordered the summoning of witnesses to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Billionaire investor Leon Black was issued two subpoenas by a congressional committee after he walked out early from a voluntary testimony session concerning his relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Members of the US House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Epstein, clashed with Black behind closed doors on Friday over non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) the Apollo Global Management co-founder is alleged to have entered into with women.

The committee issued one subpoena requiring Black to appear for a deposition on 16 July, according to a statement from the panel. A second subpoena compels him to produce the NDAs for review.

In his opening statement to the committee, Black said he had never abused women and was not blackmailed by Epstein, his former friend and client. However, after questioning turned to NDAs, he left the session early — something the committee chair said he had never witnessed before.

“Mr Black stated he would not answer questions about NDAs,” James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a statement. “Answers about the terms and substance of these NDAs are critical to our investigation. For this reason, I issued subpoenas to Mr Black for the NDAs and to appear for a deposition in the near future.”

Black, 74, had earlier said he agreed to appear before the panel to “set the record straight” on his relationship with Epstein and the payments he made to him over the course of their association.

“I was not involved with, and had no knowledge of, any of Epstein’s heinous conduct,” he said.

Moments after Black left the hearing room, his lawyer Susan Estrich described the issuing of subpoenas during his appearance as “nothing more than a planned political stunt”.

“Mr Black came here voluntarily to assist the committee,” Estrich told reporters. “They made a premeditated political decision to serve him with subpoenas after less than an hour of questioning, and before they even asked a single question about his legitimate payments to Epstein. This was nothing more than a planned political stunt.”

The top Democrat on the committee, Robert Garcia of California, welcomed the move to issue subpoenas.

“It was clear from the moment this interview started that Leon Black was not going to answer critical questions around our investigation,” Garcia said. “It is our job to secure justice for survivors who have been abused, trafficked and raped by Epstein and other co-conspirators.”