Global banks, law firms and logistics operators are drawing up contingency plans in case the Saudi-UAE feud escalates further, with Bloomberg reporting that some international investment banks now expect to be asked to choose between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. The shift is showing up first in the unsexy plumbing of cross-border business: bank transfers being returned, trucks idling at land crossings, Saudi business visas harder to obtain, and contracts being pulled off the shelf to check for force majeure clauses.
The news places the Saudi-Emirati split on the desks of executives who until recently treated the Gulf as a single market. UAE Saudi Arabia business contingency plans now span everything from warehouse layouts to fund mandates, with companies trying to keep one foot in each capital without becoming the casualty of a feud neither side is publicly trying to slow.
What Executives Are Putting Under ‘Contingency’
Middle East Eye reported on 13 July 2026 that executives across major Gulf-facing firms are reviewing contracts for force majeure language and pulling apart logistics arrangements that were set up assuming both capitals would stay open to the same Western clients. One unnamed law firm is turning down work that could antagonise either side, according to the MEE report of Bloomberg’s coverage.
That selectivity is bleeding into fund-raising. UAE-Saudi executive contingency planning in the Gulf now includes a specific instruction: an unidentified international firm raising capital for an investment vehicle was told by its Saudi counterparts that any committed capital could only go into entities focused on the kingdom, and had to steer clear of funds active in the UAE. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have long been prized as cash cows for Western businesses, and the new restrictions narrow the menu of who can deal with whom.
Border Crossings, Bank Transfers, Business Visas
The slowdown at Al Batha, the main land crossing between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, is the most visible symptom. Semafor reported on 9 July 2026 that delays at the border are lasting several days, forcing some truck drivers to sleep under their trailers as they wait for clearance for as long as a week. “Trade between the Middle East’s two largest economies is worth over $20 billion annually,” Semafor reported, “but in recent years their relationship has begun to fray.”
Goods caught in the queue have included building equipment, furniture, spare parts and fresh flowers, the kind of items that travel only when trade is treated as frictionless. Drivers have described transit times that used to take hours stretching into multi-day waits, often without a stated reason from the customs side.
The same pattern is showing up on the financial rail. The Financial Times reported, via MEE, that payments from Saudi banks to UAE-based accounts belonging to companies and individuals in Dubai have been returned or held up since May, often without explanation. Semafor’s reporting puts a human face on the workaround: “companies and individuals have also started to … route payments through third countries and some people to travel between the two Gulf states with large amounts of cash.”
- Trucks at the UAE-Saudi border held for days at a time, with waits stretching past a week in some cases (Semafor, 9 July 2026).
- Bank transfers from Saudi institutions to UAE accounts delayed or returned since May, leaving companies to route money through third countries (Financial Times, via MEE).
- Saudi business visas issued to UAE-based staff of global firms harder to obtain in recent weeks (Bloomberg, via Al Mayadeen).
Wall Street and the Question of Sides
The size of what is at stake is the reason the corporate plumbing matters. The sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the UAE together hold more than $3 trillion, according to a Bloomberg-cited tally carried by Al Mayadeen, a pool of capital that Wall Street has spent the past several years trying to manage from both sides at once.
Goldman Sachs opened an Abu Dhabi office in 2023, then became the first major global investment bank to obtain a regional headquarters license in Saudi Arabia in 2024. Its asset-management division later secured the Saudi Public Investment Fund as an anchor investor in a series of regionally focused funds. BlackRock took a similar line, receiving a commercial licence in Abu Dhabi shortly after obtaining approval to establish its regional headquarters in Riyadh. Morgan Stanley, Brookfield and KKR sit alongside them on the list of firms Bloomberg identified as now drawing up Gulf contingency plans.
The Saudi Public Investment Fund alone holds about $1.21 trillion in assets, the Chosun Biz translation of Bloomberg reported on 13 July 2026, and the wider market has been booming: the value of transactions involving Gulf capital hit about $300 billion in the first half of 2026, “nearly 200% higher than a year earlier.” Saudi and UAE funds co-invested in the $110 billion Paramount-Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, and Saudi Arabia separately bought Electronic Arts for $55 billion. Global banks drafting Gulf split contingency plans are now trying to work out which of those deals can survive if their two biggest patrons stop talking to each other.
In practice, that means the same playbook the firms have been running for two years: separate staff rosters in each capital, twin compliance teams, dual warehousing of documents and contracts. The new ingredient is the open contemplation of a hard split, which is why force majeure clauses are coming off the shelf and bilateral capital is being questioned at the moment of the fund-raise.
Gulf capital at a glance:
- Combined Saudi and UAE sovereign wealth fund assets: more than $3 trillion (Al Mayadeen, citing Bloomberg).
- Saudi Public Investment Fund assets under management: about $1.21 trillion (Chosun Biz, citing Bloomberg).
- First-half 2026 transactions involving Gulf capital: about $300 billion, nearly 200% higher YoY (Chosun Biz, citing Bloomberg).
- Bilateral UAE-Saudi trade: more than $20 billion a year (Semafor).
- Saudi Arabia and the UAE share of global oil production: approximately 13% (Al Mayadeen).
From OPEC Exit to Operating Logistics
The corporate-plumbing squeeze is the latest chapter in a fight that has been running for years. Gulf business after the Iran war closures has been visibly bruised since the early-2026 escalation, and the UAE’s departure from OPEC in May removed one of the oil-market guardrails that had disguised the Saudi-Emirati split. MEE reports that the UAE has been “massively boosting oil production since leaving the Saudi-led energy alliance Opec in May.”
Once that lever was pulled, the dispute moved from oil quotas to operating logistics. Closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the 2026 Iran war pushed more cargo onto land routes through Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Al Batha became a chokepoint that firms had previously not designed for. The Hormuz crisis and Gulf oil premiums have layered a fresh energy-price squeeze on top of that operational drag.
The deeper roots go back further. Bloomberg’s reporting, as carried by Chosun Biz, dates the regional divergence to the 2015 entry of Saudi Arabia and the UAE into Yemen’s civil war as coalition partners, after which the two backed different factions and pursued incompatible objectives. Abu Dhabi concentrated on southern ports, islands and the road to the Red Sea, while Riyadh worked through the internationally backed government. The UAE and Saudi Arabia “are at loggerheads on several geopolitical hotspots, including Yemen, Sudan and Israel,” MEE writes, and the corporate plumbing now in the news is the most visible place those geopolitical rifts have spilled.
Both Governments Push Back on a Link to the Rift
Officials on both sides have been quick to deny that any policy shift is under way. Saudi Arabia’s Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority said in a statement carried by Semafor that trade exchange “remains within the normal range of customs operations, reflecting the continued smooth movement of goods through customs ports,” and that “no complaints have been received” about delays. A UAE official told Bloomberg, via Al Mayadeen, that the two states “maintain deep and longstanding economic and commercial ties, supported by significant trade and investment flows,” and that the UAE Economy Ministry had not received complaints about delayed transfers. The Saudi central bank likewise maintained that no restrictions have been imposed against particular countries.
The official denials sit next to the named symptoms without resolving them: trucks idling at Al Batha for a week, money crossing through third countries, business visas stalling. Some executives and analysts have stopped waiting for one side or the other to confirm the link.
Trade exchange remains within the normal range of customs operations, reflecting the continued smooth movement of goods through customs ports. No complaints have been received, and there have been no indications of delays in customs procedures affecting trucks or the movement of goods at customs ports.
Statement from Saudi Arabia’s Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, carried by Semafor on 9 July 2026.
The Two Capitals, the Two Strategies
The OPEC+ quota shake-up around the Hormuz crisis made the policy gap between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh harder to ignore, and how the Saudi-Emirati split is redrawing Gulf business is showing up in how each capital is treating outside money. The two capitals now run visibly different rules for the firms that want to do business with both.
Saudi Arabia’s fiscal position makes it more dependent on higher oil prices to fund its domestic development plans and to cover widening fiscal deficits, per the analyst note cited by Al Mayadeen. The UAE, with a more diversified economy, is in a better position to weather lower prices while raising output. That asymmetry is why an international firm raising a Middle East fund was told by Saudi counterparts that its capital could only go into Saudi-focused vehicles and could not include UAE exposure; the UAE side, by contrast, told Bloomberg it had not received complaints about delayed transfers. Western firms are not picking between two equivalent markets. They are being asked to operate under two non-equivalent ones at the same time.
| Stated regional aim | Hosts regional finance alongside Dubai | “trying to make its capital, Riyadh, the centre of regional business activity in direct competition with Dubai” (MEE) |
|---|---|---|
| Oil stance | “massively boosting oil production since leaving the Saudi-led energy alliance Opec in May” (MEE) | OPEC’s de facto leader and “more dependent on elevated oil prices” because of domestic development plans (Al Mayadeen, citing analyst note) |
| Capital restrictions reported | UAE Economy Ministry “had not received complaints about delayed transfers” (Al Mayadeen) | Saudi limited partners told a fund-raiser their money could invest only in Saudi-focused vehicles with no UAE exposure (MEE) |
| Government denial | UAE “maintain deep and longstanding economic and commercial ties” (Al Mayadeen) | Saudi central bank says “no restrictions have been imposed against particular countries” (Al Mayadeen) |
The shape of the dispute has now reached Washington, which uses both Gulf monarchies as central pillars of its regional position. The pressure on firms to choose, and the parallel pushback from each capital, is what makes this more than a bilateral trade row. The remaining question is whether the corporate plumbing continues to seize, or whether one of the two sides decides the cost of losing Wall Street’s neutral stance is the bigger problem.
It is certainly not in keeping with longer-term US strategic interests to see further fragmentation amongst key US allies in the Middle East, especially during a time of conflict with Iran.
Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa practice at Eurasia Group, in a Bloomberg report carried by Al Mayadeen.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are the UAE and Saudi Arabia feuding?
The two monarchies were close allies that entered Yemen’s civil war together in 2015, but backed different factions inside the coalition. Their dispute has since spread to Sudan and Israel, to the race between Dubai and Riyadh for regional business headquarters, and to oil policy since the UAE left OPEC in May. Middle East Eye frames the dispute as a multi-file rivalry rather than a single-argument row.
When did the UAE leave OPEC?
According to Middle East Eye’s reporting, the UAE left OPEC in May, ending its membership in the Saudi-led energy alliance. Coverage of the move dates the announcement to late April, with effect from 1 May; MEE’s account places the exit “in May.” The decision removed the production caps that had disciplined Emirati output and let it diverge visibly from Saudi policy.
What is happening at the UAE-Saudi border?
Trucks are waiting “several days” to cross at Al Batha in routine cases, with some drivers forced to sleep under their trailers for as long as a week, per Semafor. Goods caught in the queue have included building equipment, furniture, spare parts and fresh flowers. Saudi Arabia’s customs authority says the flow is normal; the truckers Semafor spoke to disagree.
How much money is at stake for global finance?
The sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the UAE together hold more than $3 trillion, according to Bloomberg coverage carried by Al Mayadeen. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund alone holds about $1.21 trillion in assets. First-half 2026 transactions involving Gulf capital came in at about $300 billion, nearly 200% higher than the same period a year earlier, the Chosun Biz translation of Bloomberg reported.
What are global banks doing about it?
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Brookfield and KKR are now drafting contingency plans that include separate logistics rosters in each capital, reviews of force majeure clauses, and more selective acceptance of mandates that could antagonise either side. Some funds are accepting narrower mandates, with Saudi capital told it must stay in Saudi-focused vehicles and avoid UAE exposure.
