Middle East real estate company Aldar has appointed its first formal legal panel, with Allen & Overy (A&O), Berwin Leighton Paisner and DLA Piper all winning roles on the new roster.

The Abu Dhabi property developer and investor finalised the review during the last quarter of 2009, with the appointments made at the beginning of the year.

The company confirmed the appointment of the trio among a larger group of firms, but declined to comment further on the size of the panel or which other law firms were appointed.

Aldar previously had informal arrangements with preferred law firms but this is the first formal panel review that the company has undertaken.

The panel review was led by Aldar's Abu Dhabi-based chief legal officer Richard Gray, who was previously a partner with Australian leader Malleson Stephen Jaques in Sydney where he specialised in property development, funds management and structuring of property transactions in the commercial, retail, residential and resort sectors.

As previously reported by Legal Week, Aldar was one of the clients whose demand drove BLP to open its first Middle East office in Abu Dhabi last year. Instructions included advising on Aldar's $80bn (£53bn) investment into Abu Dhabi development contracts through a deal with InterContinental Hotels in 2008, which followed the company's appointment of BLP as its exclusive adviser on all of its Abu Dhabi hotel projects.

Other firms to advise Aldar in the past have included Clifford Chance, which advised Aldar on its landmark $2.5bn (£1.7bn) transaction which saw the creation of the first Islamic convertible bond in 2007.