In brief This is some guardedly good news for foreign investors operating in Egypt who are interested in establishing vehicles to import commodities for direct trading on the domestic market in Egypt (i.e., importation for trading). A company can now be majority or wholly-owned by foreign nationals or foreign entities and apply for the importation license for commercial resale. However, the importation license will only be granted for 10 years with a possible renewal for…
The Council of Ministers of Saudi Arabia adopted a resolution dated 03/06/1444H (corresponding to 27 December 2022G) clarifying the consequences in terms of eligibility to compete for government contracts for companies that fail to locate their Regional Headquarters (“RHQ”) in Saudi Arabia. This clarification has been anticipated for some time, since the Kingdom first announced at the end of 2020 that multinationals wishing to continue contracting with the government would need to locate their RHQs…
On 3 February 2020, the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department (ADJD) announced that the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court sentenced a former Chairman of an Abu Dhabi Government-owned company, as well as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), to 15 years’ imprisonment for money laundering. In addition to receiving a 15-year imprisonment sentence, the individuals were ordered to return around AED 8 billion (approx. USD 2.18 billion) in misappropriated public funds, pay compensation to the companies they represented…
On 31 January 2021, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Central Bank (CBUAE) publicly announced that it had sanctioned 11 banks in the UAE a total of AED 45.76 million (approx. USD 12.46 million) for failures to achieve appropriate levels of compliance with regards to Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Combatting the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) and local UAE sanctions compliance. The sanctions, imposed on 24 January, were imposed pursuant to Article 14 of the Federal Decree Law…
Signing of the “Al-Ula Declaration” ending trade and other restrictions against Qatar As reported in our previous client update, on 5 January 2021, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, along with Egypt, signed the “Al-Ula Declaration” at the 41st GCC Summit held in the city of Al-Ula. This marks the end of a three and a half year boycott…