- New Omani laws on Consumer Protection and Competition
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Royal decrees issuing two key laws were announced in the press in Oman earlier this week; Royal Decree 66/2014 amending Oman’s Consumer Protection Law and Royal Decree 67/2014 issuing Oman’s first-ever Competition and Anti-Monopoly Law.
While the Ministry of Legal Affairs has not yet issued the Official Gazette in which the final text of the laws will appear, both have been preceded by an extended consultation period among stakeholders and debated in the Majlis Ash’Shura, Oman’s consultative assembly and the lower house of the Council of Oman, and the Majlis al-Dawla, Oman’s State Council and the upper house of the Council of Oman.
Based on this, we expect the Consumer Protection Law to provide a more robust legal framework to combat the steady rise in complaints from consumers regarding monopolistic behaviour, price-fixing and commercial fraud.The long-awaited Competition and Anti-Monopoly Law is expected to combat monopolistic practices by:-
- prohibiting anti-competitive agreements including both horizontal (i.e., cartels) and vertical agreements for tie-in arrangements, price-fixing, limiting or controlling production, re-sale price maintenance and bid-rigging;
- prohibiting enterprises considered to have a ‘dominant position’ in the market from engaging in anti-competitive or restrictive practices such as price manipulation, predatory pricing, limiting market access and tied selling;
- introducing a reporting requirement for any activity, such as mergers and acquisitions, which results in an entity attaining a dominant market position and prohibiting such activities which result in an ‘economic concentration’ above a certain threshold.
Both the Consumer Protection Law and the Competition and Anti-Monopoly Law are expected to contain tough financial penalties and prison terms for non-compliance. The Public Authority for Consumer Protection will be the regulatory authority responsible for implementing both.
Commentators are optimistic that the new laws, along with the amended Commercial Agencies Law which came into force in July 2014, will make the market more attractive to foreign investors, promote healthy competition and provide enhanced protection for the consumer. They are also in line with Oman’s commitments as a member of WTO to liberalise trade and eliminate restrictive practices. Contact Reetika Walia for more details. Sign up here for further updates.
