The Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion (MOCIIP) recently issued a regulation to determine the “beneficial owner” of companies operating in Oman. This regulation is applicable to all types of companies except for public joint stock companies, which are instead regulated by the Capital Market Authority. The companies in question have until the end of this month to satisfy the provisions of this regulation. So what does this regulation mean for your business?
The Regulation Governing the Procedures for Identifying the Beneficial Owner (the Regulation), which was issued by MOCIIP Ministerial Decision 630/2022, seeks to identify the ultimate natural or legal persons that influence the decision-making process in the company and who own no less than 25% of its shares. It does this by requiring companies to produce and maintain a register of the Beneficial Owner, which must contain all of the information listed out in the annex of the Regulation.
This is remarkably similar to other common-law jurisdictions, such as English law, where companies are required to have a register for Persons of Significant Control.
The provisions of the Regulation are fairly straightforward and should be easy to satisfy before the end of this month. However, failing to do so may result in a violation, which may result in a fine of 1,000 OMR or more extremely a suspension of the commercial register of the company for a total of 3 months.