The Sultan, being the head of the state, oversees the three branches of the government instead of being within them. Article 48 addresses him as the supreme representative of the state and supreme commander of the armed forces, with his person inviolable and his command obeyed. Article 49 goes on to list all the functions of the head of the state, which include declaring a state of emergency; promulgating laws (which gives him ultimate authority over legislation); appointing and dismissing the prime minister, deputy prime ministers, ministers, undersecretaries, senior judges, and senior military officers (which gives him the final word over the judiciary and the armed forces); and ratifying treaties. The Sultan’s authority effectively spans the legislative, executive, and judicial branches together with the military, regardless of who manages day-to-day administration underneath him.

The role of the Prime Minister is distinct from the role of the Sultan, whose primary responsibility is administering the executive branch and running the Council of Ministers, which is tasked with implementing public policy, overseeing the administrative apparatus, coordinating between ministries, and proposing draft laws and decrees for the Sultan’s approval.

In addition to these general functions, article 55 states that if the Sultan appoints a prime minister, the mandates and powers of the prime minister will be specified in the royal decree appointing him. Therefore, the role of the prime minister is distinct from the role of the Sultan, and the Basic Statute of the State explicitly specifies that the Sultan can appoint someone else in this position.

Nothing in the Basic Statute obliges the Sultan to ever exercise the option to appoint a prime minister, and nothing prevents him from doing so at any time; article 55 simply sits in reserve, a standing mechanism rather than an active office, ready to be activated by a single decree whenever it is judged useful.

Even though the Sultan today is acting in both capacities, just as Sultan Qaboos did for most of his reign, it is worth noting that Oman did have a prime minister other than the Sultan in the early seventies, who happened to be Sayyid Tarik bin Taimur, Sultan Haitham’s own father.

You can learn more about the functions of the Sultan and the Prime Minister by reading the full text of the Basic Statute of the State at the link below:

Written by:

Malak Al Kharusi

Malaak is a legal intern at Decree. She has previously interned in the government sector. She is interested in commercial law. She is about to start the final year of her Business Management and Law degree at Leeds Beckett University.

If we go back to the very beginning, Oman criminalised cybercrimes for the first time in the year 2001 when a new chapter on computer crimes was added to the Penal Law of 1974. This chapter was titled “Computer Crimes” and generally covered technical offences relating to illegal access, interception, and interference with computer systems as well as misuse of payment cards. The legal concepts that this chapter governed were what an ordinary person on the street would consider to be a cybercrime, i.e. a crime of a technological nature that affects the accessibility or safety of the technology we use.

Ten years after the introduction of the computer crimes chapter to the Penal Law, Oman decided in 2011 to create a standalone Cybercrime Law. This law took the technical crimes that were originally introduced in 2001 and expanded them into four chapters on infringing data and systems, misuse of technology, digital forgery and fraud, and infringement of payment cards. In addition to these technical chapters, a chapter titled “Content Crimes” was added to the law that governed matters beyond technical crimes committed by hackers and cybercriminals. This chapter criminalised misconduct that was already mostly criminalised by the Penal Law and other Omani law (such as defamation, intellectual property infringement, and pornography) when this same act was committed using technological means. Generally speaking, a content crime under the Cybercrime Law carried a heavier punishment in comparison to the same act under the original law.

The extent to which the Cybercrime Law of 2011 had to re-criminalise offences that were already captured by the Penal Law is at best questionable. The Penal Law and other Omani laws have always been worded using expansive terminology that was not tied to a specific technology and which was already used to capture criminal conduct irrespective of the medium. Furthermore, if the objective was to provide legal certainty, the Cybercrime Law could have had a single provision to confirm the application of the Penal Law to crimes committed using technological means without having to repeat the crimes one by one.

As a result of the Cybercrime Law of 2011, we ended up with a legal framework where multiple laws criminalise the same exact conduct. For example, if you insult someone using a text message, that would be a crime under the Penal Law, the Cybercrime Law, and the Telecommunications Law; if you infringe copyright on the internet, that would be a crime under the Cybercrime Law and the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Law; if you launder money on the internet, that would be a crime under the Cybercrime Law and the Law of Combating Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing, etc.

Having the same conduct be governed by multiple laws makes predicting the application of the law difficult, especially since the Cybercrime Law does not always copy the terminology found in the original law that governs the content in question. However, my biggest problem with overloading the Cybercrime Law with content crimes that are already governed by other laws is that this distracted us from focusing on what the law is actually intended to govern. While the Cybercrime Law of 2011 had five substantive chapters with four covering technical crimes and one covering this strange category of content crimes, if you look at the number of articles in each of these chapters, the chapter on content crimes on its own is bigger (14 articles) than the four other chapters combined (12 articles).

The new Cybercrime Law of 2026 that came out last month retained the same general structure of having technical crimes and content crimes, but the technical crimes are now covered by 14 substantive articles while the content crimes are now covered by 33 substantive articles. In other words, the content crimes have more than doubled in comparison to the previous law and now take up almost two thirds of the substantive provisions of the law.

It is clear that the Omani government sees the Cybercrime Law more as a law to control illegal content on the internet than a law for controlling the misuse of technology. The new law does not introduce any transformative changes to the regulation of technical crimes and pays only lip service to contemporary issues such as artificial intelligence. Instead of focusing on technological developments, the new law introduces a new lengthy section on crimes against the state—not in regard to cyberattacks made against state networks—but in regard to content published against the state, publishing news that harms state prestige, insults against heads of other states, etc. The law also doubles down on increasing the penalties for many existing content crimes.

The disparity between the punishments for technical crimes and the content crimes provides further evidence that the Cybercrime Law has lost its purpose. The Cybercrime Law should help protect us, as individuals and as a state, against cyberattacks, so you would assume that the biggest fines under this law would be designated for those technical crimes that the law is intended to control. Under the new law, if a cybercriminal wipes the data and disables the systems of a private hospital, he would be punished under article 5 of the law with a maximum punishment of a single year, but if an individual posts a tweet with misleading information during a pandemic he would be punished under article 30 of the law with a maximum punishment of 15 years, 15 times the punishment of an actual cyberattack. In fact, the highest fine for a technical crime under the new law is only 20,000 Rial Omani under article 18 (which bizarrely was actually reduced from 50,000 Rial Omani under the previous law), whereas the highest fine for a non-technical crime is 500,000 Rial Omani under article 55.

Content crimes should not go unpunished, but the Cybercrime Law is not the place for determining what ordinary people should be allowed to post on the internet. This matter is already governed by the Penal Law, the Telecommunications Law, and many other laws. The Cybercrime Law should focus on combating cyberattacks, digital fraud, and misuse of technology that affects the safety and integrity of our digital systems. The new Cybercrime Law of 2026 makes it clear that we have forgotten the purpose of this law.

The new Cybercrime Law has already entered into force. You can read it in full in English on the link below:

The Sultanate of Oman is now a party to two of the most important international treaties governing cross border dispute resolution: The New York Convention, which deals with arbitration awards, and the Singapore Convention, which deals with settlement agreements resulting from mediation.

While both serve the same broad goal of making it easier to enforce the outcomes of alternative dispute resolution across borders, they differ in scope, mechanism, and history. This post examines what each convention does and how Oman has adopted them.

What Each Convention Does

New York Convention: Formally the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. This convention creates a uniform mechanism for enforcing arbitral awards issued in one contracting state within the territory of another, eliminating the need to relitigate the dispute from scratch.

Singapore Convention: Formally the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation. It does for mediation what the New York Convention did for arbitration, enabling direct enforcement of international mediation settlement agreements across member states.

Given the key difference between arbitration and mediation, the New York Convention is used to enforce the arbitral award decided by the arbitration tribunal, while the Singapore Convention is used to enforce the settlement agreement signed between the parties to a mediation process.

Oman’s Accession: A Timeline

Oman acceded to the New York Convention, which was entered into force in 1959, through Royal Decree 36/98, making it part of Omani law with effect from 10 June 1998.

Nearly three decades later, Oman joined the Singapore Convention, which entered into force in 2020, through Royal Decree 6/2026, issued on 11 January 2026. Oman is considered one of the early adopters of the Singapore Convention.

What This Means for Businesses

For international companies and investors in Oman, the practical significance is straightforward. An arbitral award issued in any of the 170+ New York Convention member states can be enforced in Oman without relitigating the merits.

Now, a settlement agreement resulting from mediation conducted in any Singapore Convention member state enjoys a similarly streamlined pathway. Mediation settlements are no longer “weaker” instruments; they are legally binding and enforceable.

Interaction with Omani Law

Given the maturity of the arbitration framework in Oman, the New York Convention operates directly and clearly within the legal framework of the Law of Arbitration in Civil and Commercial Disputes and the Civil and Commercial Procedures Law. Article 1 of the Arbitration Law expressly preserves the primacy of international agreements, while article 9 grants the Court of Appeal in Muscat jurisdiction over international commercial arbitrations. Article 58 stipulates that enforcement requires that the award does not violate Oman’s public order and that the award is final in its country of origin.

Oman does not currently have a proper legal framework for governing mediation as a form of alternative dispute resolution, nor does it have any legal provisions that govern settlement agreements arising out of mediation proceedings outside the general provisions of the Civil and Commercial Procedures Law that are triggered when the parties decide to settle a dispute that has already been presented before the court, not those that have independently been reached by the parties without starting litigation first. The Law of Public Notaries can be used to give settlement agreements the power of enforcement documents, but this requires both parties to notarise the agreement before the Public Notary, which is not usually possible if one of the parties is not in Oman.

It is worth noting that the mediation concept found in the Singapore Convention is not the same as the mediation concept found in the Omani Law of Mediation and Conciliation, which relates to mediation through official government tribunals, and not through an independent mediator.

This means that even though Oman is legally bound to provide a mechanism for recognising settlement agreements resulting from mediation, a domestic legal framework still does not exist for the courts to enforce such agreements.

Conclusion

This blog post highlighted the key differences between the New York Convention and the Singapore Convention and how each operates within the Omani legal framework.

For the Singapore Convention to achieve its objectives, Oman must consider issuing a standalone mediation law as well as specific provisions for the courts to enforce settlement agreements that meet the requirements of the Singapore Convention.

You can read the full text of the Singapore Convention on the link below:

Liquidators and Administrative Fees

According to article 46(2) of the Commercial Companies Law, first priority goes to the liquidation process itself before any debts are settled. The company pays the liquidator hired to sell the assets, along with any court fees and the costs of keeping the company’s property safe until it can be sold. If these administrative costs are not covered, the legal process cannot move forward.

Worker Dues

According to article 92 of the Labour Law, wages, rights, and all amounts due to a worker or to beneficiaries on his behalf by virtue of the Labour Law have priority over all other debts owed by the employer. This means that priority shifts to staff and employee salaries, end-of-service gratuity, and any unpaid amounts immediately after the payment of fees associated with the liquidation process itself.

Privileged Creditors

Once workers are paid, priority moves to claims by privileged creditors such as government-owed taxes, secured bank loans, and other claims in accordance with article 185 of the Bankruptcy Law.

General Claims

Article 185 of the Bankruptcy Law further details that once privileged claims are settled, the liquidator addresses all other general third-party claims. This category includes business partners, trade suppliers, and contractors.

The Bottom of the List: Partners and Shareholders

Finally come the business owners. The partners or shareholders of the company are at the very bottom of the list. They only receive a distribution if there is money left over after every other debt, tax, and salary is paid in full in accordance with article 46(3) of the Commercial Companies Law.

Conclusion

This post provides a simplified outline of the order in which creditors are paid when an LLC liquidates. The matter becomes more complicated when there are multiple privileged creditors that have to go through their own prioritisation process.

If you are involved in the process of liquidating a business, we highly recommend that you familiarise yourself with the Commercial Companies Law and the Bankruptcy Law.

Written by:

Nouf Al-Lamki

Nouf is a legal intern at Decree. She has previously interned in the banking sector, the aviation sector, and in private practice. She is interested in corporate. She holds a LLB from the Modern College of Business and Science.

Organise Your Workflow with Pinned Conversations

Managing multiple research threads is now easier than ever. Your conversation list is now divided into Pinned and Recent sections, so your high-priority projects stay front and center.

• Conversations Controls: We’ve added a simple “hold and press” gesture. Just long-press any conversation to pull up a menu of options to Rename, Delete, or Pin/Unpin your chats.
• Search Within Chats: No more endless scrolling. You can now use the search bar within your conversation history to instantly find specific topics or past advice.

Smart Notifications for Deep Research

Because our new agentic search performs deep synthesis of Omani legislation, complex answers can take a moment to generate. You no longer need to wait inside the app. Simply submit your query and switch to other tasks and Lex AI will send a push notification to your phone and allows you to receive notifications on the desktop as soon as your response is ready.

These updates are live for all users on both iOS and Android as well as the web version of Lex AI. Update your app on the App Store or Google Play Store to get started.

This blog post will highlight five key attributes of this agreement:

1. CEPA is a Free Trade Agreement

A CEPA at its core is a free trade agreement, which is an agreement that focuses on eliminating tariffs on the import of goods and services between countries. A CEPA attempts to be more comprehensive by incorporating additional matters such as collaboration in the area of SMEs and other topics between countries.

2. Oman-India CEPA is the biggest treaty that Oman has ever signed

Based on word count and the number of pages of the agreement, This agreement is the biggest and longest agreement that Oman has ever taken part in.

3. The treatment of goods and services between the two countries under the CEPA is asymmetrical

While most bilateral agreements provide equal treatment between the two countries, CEPA adopts a more delicate approach as the treatment of goods differs between the two countries so that, for example, one good would be exempt from tariffs going into country A, but not exempt from tariffs going into country B. This is intended to ensure that countries domestic businesses are not affected by the provisions of the agreement.

4. Oman-India CEPA allows the presence of some employees of service providers to stay in Oman for periods upto four years

One of the unique aspects of the Oman-India CEPA is the treatment of the employees of service providers which will be allowed in specific cases to allow them to enter Oman and stay for a period of up to two years extensible for an additional period of two years. It is worth noting that this applies to a specific category of employees, such as senior managers and those with special technical skills, and not all the employees of the service provider.

5. Oman-India CEPA has not entered into force

Oman-India CEPA was signed in December 2025 and ratified by Oman in February 2026. For the treaty to enter into force, both Oman and India are required to complete their legal formalties and communicate to each other that the treaty is effective from their side. At the time of writing this post, India has not published any updates on completing its internal procedures to commence the implementation of the treaty. However, it is expected for this to take place in the upcoming months.

Conclusion

Oman-India CEPA is one of the most significant treaties that Oman has ever signed, and it is expected to have significant implications on the relationship between the two countries, but also on how business is conducted in Oman in general.

You can read the text of this treaty in full in English on the link below:

Written by:

Nouf Al-Lamki

Nouf is a legal intern at Decree. She has previously interned in the banking sector, the aviation sector, and in private practice. She is interested in corporate. She holds a LLB from the Modern College of Business and Science.

1. Electronic Signatures Carry Full Legal Weight 

Under the Electronic Transactions Law, electronic signatures and documents are legally equivalent to their paper-based counterparts. Article 8 of the Electronic Transactions Law explicitly states that an electronic document is deemed a written document and produces its legal effects if it meets the technical conditions. Furthermore, article 20 confirms that electronic contracts have the same validity, enforceability, and evidentiary power as traditional contracts.

2. Three Levels on Signatures

The law categorises electronic signatures into three types, each with different levels of security and evidentiary reliability:

1. Simple Electronic Signature

This is the most basic form which includes letters, numbers, codes, symbols, or any other mark placed on an electronic document or transaction. A simple electronic signature is reliable evidence if it meets the provisions stipulated in article 11 of this law, and any concerned party may prove by any means that this signature is reliable.

2. Advanced Electronic Signature

A step up in both security and legal standing, this signature must be unique to the signatory and capable of identifying and distinguishing them from others. For it to qualify as reliable evidence, three conditions must be met. The creation tool must be linked solely to the signatory and under their control at the time of signing. Any alteration to the signature after signing must be detectable. And where the signature’s purpose is to confirm data integrity, any changes to the associated electronic information must also be detectable. As with simple signatures, reliability can still be proven through other means.

3. Qualified Electronic Signature

Sitting at the top of the hierarchy, this is an advanced electronic signature that meets the same conditions as the advanced signature but is additionally linked to an electronic authentication certificate. That extra layer of verification gives it the highest degree of trust and legal reliability under the law.

3. Trust Services Require Official Licensing

Article 24 of the law identifies a range of trust services that form the foundation of secure electronic transactions. These include the issuance of electronic authentication certificates, qualified electronic signatures, electronic seals, verification of electronic identity, electronic delivery services, and any other services the ministry may specify.

According to article 25 no entity may provide these services without obtaining a licence from the ministry, subject to the conditions and procedures set out in the regulation. The only exception is for closed internal systems, where an entity processes electronic information or data entirely within its own structure without interacting with third parties or handling external transactions.

Furthermore, article 26 confirms that these licences cannot be partially or wholly assigned, and a provider cannot suspend its services or merge with another provider without the ministry’s prior approval.

4. Misuse Carries Heavy Penalties

The law sets out a clear scale of punishments under articles 31 through 37. Penalties range from fines of 100 Rial Omani and one month’s imprisonment for obstructing authorised officers, up to fines of 50,000 Rial Omani and five years’ imprisonment for operating trust services without a licence. Legal persons face double the maximum fine, and courts may confiscate all devices, tools, and funds connected to the offence. Furthermore, the ministry can also impose administrative fines of up to 2,000 Rial Omani for violating the law or the regulation.

Conclusion

This blog post provided some of the key provisions of the Electronic Transactions Law. We highly recommend that those working in e-commerce and digital business familiarise themselves with this law.

You can read the full text of the Electronic Transactions Law in English on Decree on the link below:

Written by:

Raghd Al-Hosni

Raghd is a legal intern at Decree. She has previously interned in the energy sector and the telecom sector. She is interested in corporate law. She holds a LLB from the Liverpool John Moores University.

Violating the PDPL can result in fines ranging from 500 Rial Omani to 500,000 Rial Omani depending on the nature of the violations as specified by the provisions of articles 25 to 29 of the PDPL.

Minor Violations

The smallest penalty under the PDPL is a fine between 500 and 2,000 Rial Omani if a person violates article 14 of the law, which requires a data controller to notify a data subject in writing of a specific set of information prior to processing the personal data.

Moderate Violations

The next scale of penalties is a fine between 1,000 and 5,000 Rial Omani, which is imposed if a person violates articles 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, or 22 of the law. Examples of such violations would be the failure to appoint an external auditor to verify that the processing is conducted in accordance with the law.

Serious Violations

If a person violates the provisions of article 13, a fine will be imposed against them between 5,000 and 10,000 Rial Omani. This article is violated if a data controller fails to put in place controls and procedures required to comply with data processing requirements, such as controls for determining the risks that a data subject is exposed to when their personal data is processed.

Major Violations

Higher fines are imposed for those who violate the provisions of articles 5, 6, 19, and 21 that range between 15,000 and 20,000 Rial Omani. Violations that can result in such fines include processing sensitive personal data, such as the processing of fingerprints, without the prior permission of the MTCIT.

Grave Violations

The biggest fine under the law, and probably one of the biggest fines in the whole Omani legal system, is the fine imposed when someone violates the provisions of article 23, which can result in a fine between 100,000 and 500,000 Rial Omani. This fine will be imposed when a person processes personal data outside the Sultanate of Oman in violation of the law.

Conclusion

The penalties imposed under the Personal Data Protection Law are extremely serious and can go up to 500,000 Rial Omani. It is highly recommended that all companies make themselves familiar with the Personal Data Protection Law by reading it on the link below:

Written by:

Wedd Al-Zadjali

Wedd is a legal intern at Decree. She has previously interned in a local law firm as well as in a telecom company. She holds a BSc in Criminal Justice and Criminology from the University of Portsmouth.

Bereavement leave in Oman is governed by the Labour Law of 2023, which entitles employees to paid leave in specific family circumstances, including the death of a close relative. Employers are legally required to grant this leave where applicable, ensuring employees can take time off without loss of income or job security. Unlike the Labour Law of 2003 which provided a leave category called “special leave” that can be used by employees as bereavement leave, the Labour Law of 2023 has a specific and exhaustive list of cases of family deaths that qualify as bereavement leave and give the employee the right to a specific number of days of leave ranging from two days to ten days, depending on the degree of kinship, in addition to the widowhood leave for Muslim women of 130 days.

Under article 84 of the Labour Law of 2023, if the spouse, son, or daughter of an employee passes away, the employee is entitled to ten days of fully paid leave. If the father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, or sister of the employee passes away, the employee is entitled to three days of paid leave. If the uncle or aunt of an employee passes away, the employee is entitled to two days of paid leave.

In addition to these standard rules that apply to employees of any gender and nationality, article 84(8) grants a Muslim woman 130 days of leave if her husband dies. This is done in compliance with the Islamic rules for Iddah that last for a period of four months after the death of her husband. If the female employee is not Muslim, this period is reduced to 14 days.

It is important to note that bereavement leave is a special category of leave that cannot be waived by contract and that is offered to the employee in addition to their annual paid leave. If the death incident relates to an employee outside those stipulated by article 84, the leave would not fall under these categories and the employee would have to consume their annual paid leave to attend the funeral.

You can learn more about bereavement leave and other employees’ rights by reading the Labour Law on the link below:

Written by:

Badriya Al-Bulushi

Badriya is a legal intern at Decree. Prior to interning at Decree, she interned in a local law firm. She holds an LLB in Law and Criminology from Cardiff University.

Lunch breaks form an essential part of Oman’s labour framework. They are are designed to safeguard employee welfare, maintain balanced working conditions, and promote sustainable productivity. Article 70 of the Labour Law expressly provides that workers are entitled to a one-hour daily rest and eating break. This period is excluded from the calculation of actual working hours, and this was confirmed in Supreme Court (Labour Circuit) Contestation 766/2017 where the court held that the legally mandated one-hour break is not counted toward overtime calculation.

The fact that the lunch hour is not counted towards working hours means that when the Labour Law stipulates that the maximum working hours are 40 hours per week, these 40 hours do not include the lunch break, and this means that the lunch break is an additional time on top of the 40 hours.

Another key attribute of the lunch break hour is that it is mandatory, which means that the employer cannot agree with the worker not to have a lunch break so that the worker can leave work early, or to agree with him to have the lunch break as a shorter period than one hour.

If we combine this with the fact that the Labour Law also prohibits making the worker work for more than six continuous hours, this means that it is also not possible for the employer to agree with the worker to work for eight hours and have the lunch break hour at the end of the eight hours, effectively removing all legal grounds for the worker to demand to leave work early if the worker chooses not to have a lunch break.

Conclusion

The mandatory lunch break serves important legal and practical purposes: Protecting employee health and well-being, preventing excessive working hours, ensuring proper overtime calculation, supporting fair labour practices and promoting structured and humane working conditions. However, one can argue that making this hour mandatory can remove flexibility in the workplace if certain workers choose not to have lunch or agree to a shorter lunch break so that they can leave work early.

You can read the full text of the Labour Law in English on the link below:

Written by:

Wedd Al-Zadjali

Wedd is a legal intern at Decree. She has previously interned in a local law firm as well as in a telecom company. She holds a BSc in Criminal Justice and Criminology from the University of Portsmouth.