In the UAE, there are laws and regulations that apply in the UAE mainland and there are another set of commercial and civil laws that apply in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) which is a financial free zone in the Emirate of Dubai. The DIFC is not subject to the federal civil and commercial laws of the UAE mainland and operates largely as a self-regulated common law jurisdiction. However, UAE criminal laws and specific federal regulations, such as the regulations on anti-money laundering, apply in the DIFC.

Another financial free zone has been established in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi Global Market) that enjoys relative legislative autonomy and applies common law.

Under the UAE Law of Evidence (applicable in the UAE mainland), a party may request the court to compel the adverse party to produce a document held in its possession, subject to a number of conditions.

Under the Rules of the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts, there is a process for the standard production of documents whereby the court may order each party to submit to the other parties (i) all documents available to it on which it relies, including public documents and those in the public domain, except for any documents that have already been submitted by another party; and (ii) the documents which they are required to produce by any law, rule or practice direction.

Moreover, any party may submit to the other party a request to produce for the specific production of documents.