Case Summary: Supreme Court (Civil Circuit) 293/2016 (Characteristics of Adhesion Contracts): In a dispute between a bank and a corporate client, the Supreme Court held that the standard terms and conditions of the contract signed between a bank and this corporate client do not fulfil the characteristics of an adhesion contract, and therefore these terms and conditions cannot be set aside on this ground.

Case Summary: Supreme Court (Civil Circuit) 64/2016 (Objection to Court Jurisdiction Over Dispute Subject to Arbitration Clause): In a contractual dispute over rent payments, the Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal in Sohar cannot, at its own initiative, set aside the judgment of the Primary Court in Suwaiq on the basis that the court has no jurisdiction due to the existence of an arbitration clause in the contract if none of the parties to the dispute raised this as a defence.

The Ministry of Information: This is the entity responsible for disseminating information about the Sultanate of Oman and regulating media in the country.

The Ministry of Economy: This is the entity responsible for formulating the macro-economic policy of the state, approving the annual development budget of the government, and approving projects for the five-year plans of the government.

The new regulation completely overhauls the framework for controlling noise generated by business operations in public places (such as construction, mining, and airports), creates a classification for noise levels for daytime vs nighttime without reference to working days and holidays, introduces new duties on project owners to take noise measures and carry out noise modelling as part of environmental impact studies, and sets new administrative penalties of up to 500 rials for those who violate the regulation.

It is worth noting that this regulation repeals the old Regulation on Noise Control in the Public Environment of 1994, but does not repeal the Regulation on Noise Control in the Work Environment of 1994, which continues to remain in force.

The new Regulation for Noise Control in the Public Environment enters into force tomorrow. You can read it in full in English on the link below:

The new System of Signing Contracts and Financial Commitments of the State sets the formalities by which a government entity can sign a contract or any financial commitment with a foreign government, an international organisation, or a private natural or legal person in Oman or abroad. This new system simplifies the process of signing government contracts as it removes the requirements previously set by Royal Decree 48/76 to have any contract worth more than 500,000 Rial Omani signed by the Ministry of Finance in addition to the ministry responsible for the contract. The signature of the Ministry of Finance is now only required in regard to the signing of government bonds, government guarantees, and investment projects relating to the economic development of the state outside OIA investments.

The new system also codifies some existing practices that were not previously governed by any specific legal text, such as those relating to the issuance of government guarantees. Chapter Three of the system sets the general rules that government guarantees must comply with, imposes an explicit requirement to have such guarantees reviewed by the MJLA, and specifies that the Ministry of Finance has the authority to issue a decision governing the conditions of government guarantees.

Contractors signing contracts with proper government ministries subject to the provision of this system must ensure that the government entities they sign their contracts with comply with the provisions of this system as article 6 of the system stipulates that any contract that does not comply with the provisions of the system will not be enforceable against the government. Article 6 appears to put an unreasonable level of risk on contractors as it also stipulates that a contract will only be enforceable against the government if financial allocations are available for the project in question, which is an internal matter for the government that contractors would not have the ability to verify. However, confusingly enough, article 11 of the system stipulates that signing a government contract in accordance with the provisions of this system is deemed a confirmation that financial allocations are present.

This new system does not apply to government-owned companies, investments made by the OIA, contracts signed by military or security agencies or CBO, contracts signed by public establishments that are not financed or guaranteed by the state, or contracts signed directly by His Majesty or by his written authorisation.

The System of Signing Contracts and Financial Commitments of the State will enter into force after 30 days. You can read it in full in English on the link below:

Oman historically had three laws governing media: The Printed Material and Publishing Law of 1984, the Law on the Censorship of Artistic Works of 1997, and the Law of Private Radio and Television Establishments of 2004 Each one of these laws was a standalone legal framework for regulating newspapers, books, and other printed materials; for regulating audio, visual, and audiovisual works such as paintings and films; and for regulating radio and tv stations. These laws established content standards and prohibitions that differ from each other, which made sense at the time due to the clear distinction between printed material and audio and visual works, but did not make sense in the age of the internet where it becomes difficult to separate written content from audiovisual content.

The new law repeals all of the previously mentioned laws and applies the same rules to all media activities carried out in the state. It also sets the controls for practising media activities, determines the rights and obligations of media professionals, and provides specific provisions for the right of reply and correction.

However, the basic framework through which those operating in the media industry work remains the same as the old system. It is still required to obtain a licence from the Ministry of Information to carry out any media activity, including the operation of a news account on social media, it is still required to obtain the approval of the Ministry of Information before importing any audiovisual work into the country, and it is required to deposit a copy of any printed material (outside periodic publications) with the Ministry of Information, even though the details for this last item will be detailed in full in the regulation.

In regard to substantive changes to the old law, the most problematic aspect of these old laws, and in particular the Printed Material and Publishing Law of 1984, was the wide scale of the content prohibitions imposed by these laws, such as the prohibition of publishing any content contrary to public morals, violates Omani traditions and customs, prejudices the Sultan or members of the royal family, harm the national currency, or questions the market or the economic situation of the country, along with other widely worded non-defined concepts. Many people believe these provisions have directly contributed to the culture of self-censorship in the Omani press. Futhermore, the international community has recommended to the Omani government, through the Universal Periodic Review process and others, that these provisions must be revised to align Omani laws with the international standards for freedom of expression.

The new law removed almost all the prohibitions that were provided in the Printed Material and Publications Law such as those relating to content that prejudices the Sultan, the currency, the economy, etc. The law now only provides a very small list of prohibited content in article 4 that relates to publishing advertisements that are contrary to public morals or mislead the public, reports on investigations and trials, and matters specifically prohibited by orders by the Ministry of Information. The ministry can in theory use this last item as a ground to prohibit anything it wishes to prohibit, but such a decision can in theory be challenged in the courts.

There is no doubt that repealing these prohibitions is a positive move for freedom of expression, but it also must be acknowledged that many of these prohibitions were transplanted in recent years into other laws. The most obvious of these laws is the Telecommunications Law which makes it a crime punishable with imprisonment for up to one year for anyone who uses any means of communication to send a message contrary to public order or public morals, which can be an easy law to use to hold a journalist criminally liable for information they publish on an internet website.

It is also worth noting that in regard to the reporting of investigations and trials the new Media Law introduces more stringent restrictions than the previous law, which used to be limited to personal status cases (due to their sensitive and personal nature), but now is a complete prohibition on reporting on any investigation or court trial irrespective of the subject, which clearly goes against the principle of open justice recognised by article 80 of the Basic Statute of the State.

The law also introduces new restrictions on the ability of media companies to receive funds from third parties under article 5 of the new law and restrictions under article 23 of the new law on the ability of media professionals to obtain money from personal media-related activities (for example, obtaining sponsorship payments for their personal social media activities) without first obtaining the approval of their employer.

These are merely some of the new changes in the new law, and there are many other substantive changes, including an obligation on all media companies to publish any official statements requested by the government, an obligation on government entities to comply with the law and notify the Ministry of Information of the details of employees carrying out media related activities, new restrictions on the ability of the Ministry of Information to suspend licences for more than 7 days without a court order, and many more.

The new Media Law enters into force on Monday next week. You can read it in full in English on the link below:

The new National Records Law creates a digital database for national records hosted in a new centre called the National Records Centre based in Royal Oman Polic that is given the power to demand that any (1) government entity, (2) government-owned company with 40% government shareholding or more, or (3) private company given a concession or a licence to exploit a natural resource or a manage public utility integrates with ROP to provide its data directly electronically or to supply the data required by ROP using a traditional form.

The law requires entities falling within its mandate to provide ROP with details of all the data they produce or possess, notify ROP of any change they make in their systems, and assign a focal point responsible for ensuring the proper implementation of the law.

The law appears to suggest that government entities will have the ability to integrate with the national records database to use the data of this database in the delivery of their own public services. Article 13 of the law provides an illustrative list of the cases in which ROP can refuse requests from government entities to pull data from the database.

This new legislation is an actual law promulgated by royal decree, not a policy, a circular, or even a regulation. However, failure to comply with the law is punishable by a fine up to 500 Rials only.

In essence, this law creates a base registry for government information that government entities should use to deliver their services. If this law actually works, a government entity would not have to request a user of any of its services to provide a piece of information that is already in the possession of another government entity. The justification for giving this mandate to ROP and not another entity is probably the fact that ROP is the de facto owner of the current national base registry, which is the civil status database that has all the details of national identity cards, residence cards, and passports.

However, this database goes beyond being merely a base registry for the personal information of individuals, as the law requires government-owned companies and private companies with concessions and public utility licences to also integrate with ROP, suggesting that the database might be used to collect all information collected by these entities. This puts into question the role of the National Centre for Statistics and Information as well as the role of the National Records and Archives Authority into question, especially since this law does not clarify their relationships with the new database, which is peculiar given that both of these entities also have a somewhat similar scope to demand records and data from government entities, government-owned companies, and certain private companies.

The new National Records Law enters into force next week. You can read it in full in English on the link below:

Long Due Reform

Oman’s first ever Advocacy Law was issued in 1996, and since then, this law had very few amendments made to it, with the most recent of these amendments being more than 16 years ago. The law badly was due for an overhaul with the main apparent drivers of the reform being the desire to improve the quality of Omani advocates.

The previous system for qualifying as a lawyer in Oman was an apprenticeship system where a law graduate was merely required to register in any law firm for a period of two years, and then submit evidence of court submission he worked on to the government to be registered as a primary court lawyer. This practice has been very problematic as it was not uncommon for a law graduate to register in a law office of one of his relatives, not do any work for two years, and then take submissions written by another person in the law office to submit to the government to obtain his licence. Even in cases that are not as extreme as this, the government had no proper system in place to evaluate the apprenticeship experience of the lawyer or determine if this person is capable of providing services at the required standard.

This issue is compounded as many young Omani lawyers would quit the law firm that they trained in immediately after they obtain their primary court licence to establish their own office with no meaningful practical experience in law or in running a business, and this resulted in the creation of hundreds of law firms scattered all over the country with questionable credentials that are, in turn, supposed to train and qualify the next generation of Omani lawyers.

Another issue that the new law attempts to address is the challenges relating to the operation of foreign law firms in Oman. Due to legal requirements in the old law that restrict the ability to establish law firms to licensed advocates, foreign law firms wishing to operate in Oman usually had to partner with a local law firm using contractual arrangements, and then would hire Omani and non-Omani staff who would provide legal advice, technically a regulated activity restricted to licensed advocates, without being registered with the Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs. This was controversial for a variety of reasons, especially from a regulatory point of view as a significant segment of the legal industry—that was giving advice to the biggest companies in the country—was operating without any regulatory oversight by the government.

Two Types of Law Firms

The key fundamental change to the regulation of the legal profession under the new law is that law firms will now fall under two categories: advocacy offices and legal consultancy offices, with advocacy offices being licensed to perform litigation related matters, issue legal advice, draft contracts, and carry out company formation procedures, while legal consultancy offices being licensed to issue legal advice, draft contracts, and carry out company formation procedures, i.e. everything that an advocacy office does outside litigation. Technically speaking, representing a client in arbitration in Oman falls under the litigation provisions, but the law carved out arbitration for legal consultancy offices to allow them to represent their clients before arbitral tribunals.

Similarly, actual lawyers will now also fall under two categories: advocates and legal consultants, and both of these categories of lawyers have to register with the MJLA.

Advocacy Profession

The advocacy profession will be restricted to Omanis, and will now generally require passing a qualification exam to move up the rolls of advocates. This includes passing an exam to move from the roll of trainee advocates to the roll of primary court advocates, passing another exam to move to the roll of courts of appeal advocates, and passing a final exam to move to the roll of Supreme Court advocates. There are also now continuous professional development requirements to move up the ladder, but not to retain the licence. The qualification periods have been significantly reduced, with the time required to move from primary courts to courts of appeal reduced from five to three years, and the time required to move from courts of appeal to the Supreme Court reduced from seven to five years.

There are also a few exceptions to the exam requirements. For example, a new register will be created for government officials acting as advocates for their entities who will not be required to take the exam if they wish to become advocates after they leave the government as long as they provide evidence that they actually practised advocacy on behalf of the government during their service. Working in a legal function in the government or in any company can also qualify a person to become an advocate for different court levels, but this will require the candidate to take the exam required for the court level in question. However, the required period of experience for these two categories is different and both are longer than the period required for advocates.

There are also other controls on the operation of advocacy offices, including a legal requirement for all law firms to have professional indemnity, more specific restrictions on marketing their services, additional formalities for pro bono work, a new obligation to continuously have at least one advocate trainee appointed in the advocacy office, a requirement for those with a combined law degree (law and business, law and economics, etc.) to meet certain course requirements to qualify, provisions to limit revolving door practices by judges and public prosecutors who become advocates, and many more.

Legal Consultancy Profession

Under the new law, it will not be permitted for any person to provide legal consultancy services without registering with the MJLA. This means that all lawyers working in all law firms, whether Omani or not, and whether they are licensed as advocates or not, will now be required to register with the MJLA.

The new law also allows foreign law firms to establish legal consultancy offices on their own or jointly in partnership with other Omani legal consultation offices. However, the law does not appear to allow a foreign legal consultant to establish an office in his personal capacity with an Omani legal consultant.

The law does not provide any details on the requirements to register as a legal consultant or much information on the rights and obligations of legal consultants, but these are expected to be detailed in the executive regulation of the law. The law also stipulates that the MJLA will issue a code of conduct for legal consultants that is distinct from the code of conduct for advocates.

The Way Ahead

The new examination formalities for the qualification of advocates are definitely a step in the right direction and they have the potential to transform the advocacy industry if these exams are properly designed and executed. However, this will not be easy given that the Omani legal educational system as a whole is still not mature and the available educational resources for Omani legal education are extremely limited. Given that law colleges themselves struggle to find proper material to teach their students, the training materials for these exams will have to be developed from scratch.

The legal industry also needs more than legal knowledge to be able to develop, and Omani law firms would greatly benefit from more general skills on how to run and manage their offices as a business.

The fact that all lawyers, both advocates and legal consultants, will now be required to register with the Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs is also a step in the right direction, but in the same way advocates, accountants, and doctors, are required to meet certain criteria before they are able to practice their profession, legal consultants should obviously also be required to meet their own criteria before they are allowed to give advice.

The new Advocacy and Legal Consultancy Law will enter into force after six months, and existing law firms have one year to comply with its provisions.

You can read the new law in full in English on the link below:

As we all know by now, AI has the potential to have numerous legal implications in regard to privacy, intellectual property, user safety, and discrimination. This new Council of Europe AI Convention attempts to set legal obligations on states that join this convention to ensure that all activities within the lifecycle of artificial intelligence systems are consistent with human rights, democracy and the rule of law, both in regard to activities undertaken by public authorities as well as private actors.

The convention sets key principles that states need to respect, such as human dignity and individual autonomy, transparency and oversight, accountability and responsibility, equality and non-discrimination, privacy and personal data protection, reliability, and safe innovation. The convention requires states to introduce measures that require that persons affected by AI systems are notified of the use of AI and grant such persons the right to challenge decisions relating to them that were made by AI systems. The convention also requires states to have measures that require carrying out AI impact assessment on human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.

The convention does not have many specifically prescribed actions that states need to take, and appears to be written in a manner that gives states more flexibility in regard to the measures that states are required to impose against private actors. It also gives states the ability to introduce provisions in a gradual manner while taking into consideration the unique context of each country.

The convention does not appear to have teeth, as there are no serious consequences for states that fail to meet their obligations. There is also no formal complaints procedure that allows individuals to take action against states that violate their obligations. Furthermore, the convention excludes from its scope activities within the lifecycle of AI systems relating to the protection of national security interests, and there is a separate paragraph that states that “matters relating to national defence do not fall within the scope of this Convention”. This is disappointing as it means that the convention will probably not be useful to stop states such as Israel from using AI systems, like Gospel and Lavender, in military operations, even if these acts are deemed war crimes by the ICJ.

It is also worth noting that this convention is an international agreement that is only binding on the countries that choose to sign it and then complete their domestic constitutional formalities to ratify it. At the time of writing, it has been signed by 10 states plus the EU. However, the treaty will only enter into force after at least 5 states that sign it complete their domestic ratification processes. This treaty is also not open for Council of Europe non-members to join, unless they are invited.

Oman has never joined any Council of Europe convention in its history, with the exception of the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters which was a joint project by the Council of Europe and the OECD. It is practically impossible that Oman would ever join this convention.

However, in the same way the EU AI Act that was adopted earlier this year is likely to be used as a benchmark for any new AI laws issued in Oman or elsewhere, it is not unlikely for the GCC or the Arab League to decide to take part in this new trend of AI regulation and develop their own AI treaty using the same principles that the Council of Europe has now codified as principles of public international law.

The Council of Europe AI Convention will only enter into force after the ratification of 5 member states from among those who sign the convention. You can read it in full on this link.

Written by:

Riyadh Al-Balushi

Riyadh is the CEO at Decree. Prior to co-founding Decree, Riyadh worked for over 16 years of as a lawyer for the government of Oman. His areas of subject matter expertise include public international law, technology law, and intellectual property. He holds an LLB from the University of Cardiff, an LLM in IT and Commerce from Southampton University, and a PhD from SOAS, University of London. Riyadh is also a co-founder of Open Data Oman.

We are still in the early stages of building the English database of Decree Saudi Arabia, and we welcome feedback from our users regarding items from the backlog of Saudi legislation that they would like to see translated on Decree.

Similar to the Omani version of Decree, Decree Saudi Arabia is linked with Qanoon Saudi Arabia, and it is possible to use the English website to locate legislation items even if they are not translated so that the user can view the original document or use Google translate to access the document.

Decree Saudi Arabia also has its own free weekly newsletter that notifies users of the contents of new issues of Umm Al-Qura.

Please note that the login details of Decree.om are NOT linked with the login details of Decree Saudi Arabia. Upon the official launch of the service, both services will be accessible using a unified access system.

Decree Saudi Arabia is available free of charge until the end of the year. It will be available as an add-on to Decree.om customers.

You can stay up to date with Decree Saudi Arabia by following our Saudi LinkedIn account.

Governance of AI

The use of artificial intelligence has countless legal and ethical implications. From civil and criminal liability resulting from AI systems, to ethical issues relating to the training of AI models using biased data that results in, for example, AI systems assuming that all individuals with Middle Eastern features are likely to be terrorists, and therefore flagging them for additional investigation at airports.

Countries around the world are considering these implications, and the EU was the first country to issue a comprehensive and legally binding piece of legislation to govern artificial intelligence in the form of the EU AI Act. This act adopts a risk-based approach to AI regulation and completely prohibits the use of AI tools of unacceptable levels of risk, such as social scoring systems and predictive policing, and imposes no obligations on minimal risk AI systems such as spam filters. The act imposes some obligations on limited risk AI systems, such as basic chatbots, and imposes more serious obligations on high risk AI systems, such as those used in recruitment. The act imposes substantial fines against violators that go up to 35 million Euros or 7% of the annual turnover of the violator.

What is a Policy?

The public consultation document published by the MTCIT suggests that Oman is not going to have a stringent artificial intelligence governance framework that is similar to the EU, and will follow a more permissive approach by adopting a non-legally binding policy.

To understand what this policy means in the Omani legal context, it might be useful to clarify the levels of legislation we have in this country. Legislation in Oman can be classified as primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary legislation is issued by the Sultan and includes royal decrees and laws, such as the Personal Data Protection Law. Secondary legislation is issued by a minister and includes ministerial decisions and executive regulation, such as the Executive Regulation of the Personal Data Protection Law. Executive regulations, like laws, are also legally binding and those who violate them may be fined or held accountable using other forms of enforcement. The final and third level is tertiary legislation, and even though tertiary legislation is usually issued by a minister, it is not usually legally binding. This category of legislation includes things like circulars and policies, such as the Personal Data Protection Policy of Government Units. These policies are intended to provide non-legally binding instructions, and the MTCIT usually issues them to provide to other government entities details on the best practices for IT governance.

So unlike the Personal Data Protection Law, which was legally binding and imposes fines up to half a million Rial Omani, the MTCIT is considering to issue the AI governance framework as a non-legally binding policy that does not impose any fines against those who violate it and provides no real mechanism of enforcement.

Oman National AI Policy

The draft National Artificial Intelligence Policy provides high-level principles that must be taken into consideration when developing or deploying an AI system. It requires complying with general ethical principles relating to privacy, equity, transparency, and accountability. Even though the MTCIT did not follow the risk-based approach established by the EU AI Act, the MTCIT makes the distinction used by the EU AI Act when it comes to the providers and deployers of AI systems and imposes a different set of obligations on those who develop an AI system (i.e. providers) and those who use an AI system (i.e. deployers). For example, the policy requires providers to carry out an impact assessment for an AI system before it is deployed, and requires deployers to provide mechanisms for human supervision over decisions made by an AI system.

In addition to these general requirements, the policy provides a long list of good practices that providers of AI systems are meant to adopt, such as performing periodic evaluations, establishing rail guards for the use of AI systems, adopting cyber security provisions, etc, and another set of general requirements that deployers of AI systems are meant to adopt, such as complying with the Personal Data Protection Law, destroying the data appropriately after use, and ensuring that the data used is clean and reliable.

The provisions of the policy will apply to both public and private organisations in Oman that provide or deploy AI systems. However, it will not apply to individuals.

Wait and See Approach

The fact that the MTCIT has chosen not to issue a legally binding instrument is probably a wise decision, especially given that the Omani government has a history of over-regulation and imposing impractical conditions that make it extremely difficult for major applications to comply with (for example, MTCIT’s Executive Regulation of the Law of Carriage by Land and TRA’s Regulation Governing the Provision of Voice or Video Telecommunications Service over Internet Protocol require transportation apps, such as Uber, and VoIP apps, such as FaceTime and Whatsapp Calls, to have their servers locally hosted in Oman, and since these apps are unable to comply with the law, these services are blocked).

Given the fast pace at which AI technology is developing, attempting to create legally binding rules at this point in time can have unpredictable results, and it is more reasonable to wait and see how this technology develops before attempting to strictly regulate it.

However, this is not to say that there are no areas of law that need rapid intervention to address certain AI-risks. For example, the Omani Personal Data Protection Law needs to be amended to introduce a requirement to obtain the consent of a data subject before using his personal data for profiling purposes or automated decision-making, granting the data subject the right to object to such uses, or at least imposing an obligation on a data controller to disclose to the data subject that his personal data is being used by such tools. These AI-related data subject rights are already found in the laws of many countries, including neighbouring countries such Bahrain and the UAE.

Public Consultation

The public consultation for the draft National AI Policy is still open. Those interested in reading the document in full and in sharing their feedback with the MTCIT can do so by visiting this link. The public consultation period closes on 28 August 2024.

Written by:

Riyadh Al-Balushi

Riyadh is the CEO at Decree. Prior to co-founding Decree, Riyadh worked for over 16 years of as a lawyer for the government of Oman. His areas of subject matter expertise include public international law, technology law, and intellectual property. He holds an LLB from the University of Cardiff, an LLM in IT and Commerce from Southampton University, and a PhD from SOAS, University of London. Riyadh is also a co-founder of Open Data Oman.

Today, we are taking Decree Risk to the next level by announcing Risk Watchlist—a tool that allows organisations to monitor future risk incidents by adding the CR number of a target company on the Risk Watchlist to receive immediate alerts when any of these target companies appear in a risk announcement.

An example of the case use of Risk Watchlist is the use by a litigation department to monitor a counterparty in a court case or an arbitration. Due to the lengthy duration of court cases and arbitrations, a troubled counterparty in a dispute may decide to liquidate halfway through a case without notifying the other party. If this other party does not submit its claims to the liquidator on time, it loses its chance to recover any money.

Decree Watchlist helps these organisations address this challenge by monitoring the CR of any company they need to track. If this company is involved in any risk incident tracked by Decree Risk, such as liquidation, capital reduction, legal form transformation, or merger, the user will receive an email alert within hours of the risk incident taking place.

Risk Watchlist uses Decree’s own database that is populated daily by monitoring the Official Gazette and all daily newspapers to report all risk announcements.

Decree Watchlist is available free for all Decree users until the end of their current contracts without any additional charges. It will be available afterwards through a bundle subscription.