Meeting the requirements of regulators with confidence.
The firm helps clients understand and meet their regulatory obligations in Qatar, advising on licensing, compliance frameworks and dealings with regulators and government bodies.
Compliance in Qatar is not a single statute to which one can turn. It is the sum of duties scattered across several instruments, each with its own scope, its own competent authority and its own sanction. Law No. 20 of 2019 on combating money laundering and terrorism financing creates preventive duties of due diligence, reporting and record keeping. Law No. 13 of 2016 on personal data privacy protection creates duties for every business that processes the data of individuals. The Commercial Companies Law, issued by Law No. 11 of 2015 and amended by Law No. 8 of 2021, creates duties to maintain statutory registers, to identify the beneficial owner and to file with the competent authority. The Law of Environmental Protection, issued by Law No. 30 of 2002, creates duties of permission, monitoring and notification. The Labour Law, issued by Law No. 14 of 2004, creates duties of documentation, working conditions and wage records.
Each of those statutes entrusts supervision of its own implementation to the ministry or authority competent for the sector, and that body is given powers to inspect, to require documents, to seek explanations and to impose the administrative measures the law provides. Two points follow. The executive regulations of a law, and the decisions and instructions issued by the competent authority under it, form part of the binding rule rather than optional guidance, so a business that has read only the articles of the statute has read only half of its obligation. And a single act may simultaneously give rise to an administrative measure, to criminal liability and to civil liability towards an injured person, each on its own basis and before its own forum, none of which substitutes for or absorbs the others.
How we help
- Licensing advice
- Compliance frameworks and policies
- Regulatory correspondence
- Government-affairs guidance
- Investigations and responses
In Qatar
What all these duties share is that they are documentary in nature, and that the burden of showing performance rests on the undertaking rather than on the supervisor. An obligation that was in fact performed but never recorded is treated, at the moment of inspection or claim, as an obligation that was not performed, because what is placed before the competent authority is evidence, not recollection or internal custom. The compliance file therefore does double duty. It is the means of preventing a breach, and it is at the same time the foundation of a defence if a breach occurs and of a challenge if a decision is issued in consequence, since an administrative decision is subject to judicial review by the routes laid down in Law No. 7 of 2007 on the settlement of administrative disputes.