LexBerg was instructed in 2022 to represent a German mother in an urgent international child custody dispute involving her two children, aged six and nine, who had been retained in the United Arab Emirates by their father following a family holiday. The family had been habitually resident in Hamburg, and the father — a UAE national — had taken the children to visit family in Dubai with the mother's consent for a three-week holiday. At the agreed return date, the father refused to bring the children home and instead filed proceedings in the Dubai Family Court seeking permanent custody.

Germany and the UAE are not parties to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which meant that the standard international return mechanism was unavailable. LexBerg was required to pursue every available alternative channel simultaneously — German court proceedings, bilateral diplomatic engagement, and direct participation in the UAE family court proceedings through specialist local counsel — while managing the acute distress of a mother who had not seen her children for eleven weeks at the point of instruction. This was one of the most complex family law instructions LexBerg's team has handled.

With no Hague Convention treaty to rely upon, LexBerg developed a multi-track strategy designed to create maximum legal and diplomatic pressure within the UAE framework while establishing a clear German jurisdictional record to underpin any future European enforcement of the outcome.

The absence of a bilateral convention meant every avenue had to be created from scratch. LexBerg coordinated four parallel tracks — German court, UAE court, diplomatic, and welfare documentation — treating them as mutually reinforcing rather than alternatives.

• An emergency German custody order was obtained from the Hamburg Family Court, establishing sole legal custody with the mother and documenting the unlawful retention as a benchmark for any future recognition proceedings.
• Specialist UAE family law counsel in Dubai filed an intervention in the father's Dubai Family Court proceedings, challenging the UAE court's jurisdiction on the basis of the children's established habitual residence in Hamburg.
• The German Federal Foreign Office's Central Authority for International Family Law Matters was engaged to make formal diplomatic representations to UAE authorities regarding the children's welfare and their established Hamburg residence record.
• Comprehensive evidence of the children's school attendance, medical care, friendships, and social integration in Hamburg was presented to both courts, establishing the overwhelming connection to Germany as the children's genuine home.

Seventeen months after instruction, the father agreed to return both children to Hamburg under a consent order entered simultaneously in both the German and UAE proceedings. The agreed international contact arrangements — school holiday visits to the UAE — were carefully structured by LexBerg to include mirror protective orders in both jurisdictions preventing any future unlawful retention. Both children have since returned to their Hamburg school and are receiving appropriate welfare support. The case has become a reference model within LexBerg's family law practice for handling international child disputes in jurisdictions where Hague Convention mechanisms are unavailable.