The dangers of bankers' bad behaviour in Dubai
The growing number of expat workers (and tourists) in Dubai is leading to increasing instances of culture clashes between Western and Islamic standards on what constitutes acceptable social behaviour.
The case of HSBC real estate analyst Toby Carroll, who called Dubai police to break up a domestic disturbance stemming from a love triangle - only for all three to be arrested and held under possible charges of sex outside of marriage - is another example of a collision of Western and Islamic morals.
Sex outside of marriage is illegal in the UAE, as are other acts like public drunkenness which would be considered relatively trivial in most Western countries. Only the bigger instances - such as the Charlotte Adams kissing case and the British woman caught having sex on the beach - tend to get any coverage, but these arrests are increasingly common.
"This is quite a recent phenomenon and is down to combination of a larger number of expat workers, and their lack of education about local laws, and a crackdown on this sort of behaviour to uphold Islamic principles," says Dr Christopher Davidson, a specialist in Gulf affairs at the University of Durham. "Every time there's a story about an expat being thrown into prison for this sort of thing, it immediately torpedoes the authorities' efforts to liberalise the economy and bring in foreign investment."
One senior investment banking working in Dubai believes that a lot of expats working in the financial sector are collared for drunkenness, or kissing a little too "passionately" in public, but a lot of this goes unreported.
"This sort of thing is not an everyday occurrence but happens often and does not really make it to the press, unless the victims themselves report it," he says. "But why would you? A conviction means you will never get a job back home."
A friend of Danielle Spencer, Carroll's former girlfriend, leaked the story to the Daily Telegraph.
Unlike Hong Kong, which is considered something of a party town for expat bankers, people don't really move to the UAE for a hedonistic lifestyle. Nonetheless, it's possible that the authorities crack down on these behaviourial issues could be down to increasing ill-feeling towards financial services professionals.
"Since the financial crisis, the blame game has been played against Western bankers and there's been a bit of backlash," says Davidson. "Some of the sentiments coming from the local population in the UAE have been quite nationalistic. The authorities are caught in the middle - maintaining Dubai's reputation for a financial services and tourism hub, while being seen to uphold Islamic principles."
