As can be seen from our overview post of the new Omani Maritime Law, this law is massive and makes many changes to the way the maritime industry is governed. In this post, we will highlight five key changes introduced by this major legal instrument:
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Oman Issues New Maritime Law
The promulgation of the new Omani Maritime Law last month was definitely one of the most significant legal developments in the Omani legal system of this year. This law repeals the Maritime Law of 1981 and the Maritime Navigation Law of 1981. The new Maritime Law is massive and is composed of 9 parts and a total of 387 articles. This blog post will provide an overview of the content of each of the 9 parts of the new law.
The Ministry of Social Development issued a new Governance Regulation for Practising the Profession of Psychological Counselling and Family Counselling. This regulation replaces the Regulation for Private Counselling and Family Counselling Centres of 2013 and expands on the licensing requirements from a simple requirement to have the counselling centre licensed to a more comprehensive licensing requirement for each individual practitioner working in a counselling centre, in addition to the existing requirement to have the centre licensed as well.
The regulation provides a detailed procedure for obtaining the licence under several conditions, the most important being for the licence applicant to be an Omani or GCC national. The regulation makes a distinction between psychological counselling and family counselling, and provides different academic degrees and work experience requirements for licence applicants. Article 25 of the regulation provides for a mechanism to allow a visiting practitioner to provide services in the centre after the approval of the ministry, but it is not clear from the regulation if this is limited to Omani and GCC nationals.
The regulation entered into force on 26 April 2022, and existing centres have 6 months to comply with the regulation.
You can read the regulation in full in English on the link below:
The legal implications of generative artificial intelligence—such as ChatGPT, Dall-E, and Midjourney—are countless: From privacy issues relating to the processing of personal data without the permission of users, to civil and criminal liability of the information generated by these tools. However, one of the most interesting legal issues is the extent to which these new technologies conflict with copyright law, especially as AI tools such as ChatGPT have made it extremely easy to create what appear to be new works based on information freely available on the internet. The question here is simple: Do the works produced by ChatGPT violate the copyright protection of the underlying works from which ChatGPT obtained its information? Spoiler alert: Under Omani Copyright Law, the answer is yes.
The Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion has issued this month a new Regulation for Governing Consumer Cooperatives, which allows members of a specific community to establish a cooperative company with the objective of providing and selling goods to that community. Cooperatives that satisfy the requirements of this regulation are entitled to be allocated government land through usufruct.
The new regulation mandates that the cooperative takes the form of a closed joint stock company, requires the approval of the governorate in which it intends to operate, requires that natural persons own at least 75% of the shares of the company, and sets the shareholding of each natural person in the company to a maximum of 5% of its total shares. The regulation permits one strategic partner with expertise in the coop industry to own a maximum of 25%.
The regulation requires cooperatives to obtain a licence from MOCIIP in order for them to operate, and requires MOCIIP to coordinate with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning to allocate government land to such cooperatives through usufurct.
The regulation was published in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette and comes into force after three months.
You can read it in full in English on the link below:
The Authority for Public Services Regulation has issued a new Water and Treated Water Supply and Wastewater Collection and Transport Services Customers Welfare Regulation that sets the obligations of water and wastewater service providers towards their customers. The predecessor of APSR, the Electricity and Related Water Sector Authority, issued a regulation for electricity sector customers in 2020, and this regulation follows an extremely similar approach for water and wastewater sector customers.
This regulation sets the obligations of service providers in the water and wastewater sector such as the obligation to provide a service agreement in the Arabic and English languages, an obligation not to discriminate between customers, and an obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the information they collect.
The regulation also provides a detailed complaint mechanism procedure, outlines the process for service disconnection, determines billing details, and grants APSR the right to impose administrative penalties of up to 20,000 Rial Omani against service providers who violate this regulation.
You can read the regulation in full in English on the link below:
The Authority for Public Services Regulation has issued the Regulation on Accident Notification in the Water and Wastewater Sector that imposes obligations on providers of licensed water and wastewater activities to report certain types of accidents to the Civil Defence and Ambulance Authority, APSR, and the chairman of the board of the service provider.
The regulation classifies accidents into serious accidents (ones that involve death or injury), significant accidents (ones that involve certain types of service interruption), and serious incidents (incidents that are likely to result in a serious or significant accident). It also includes obligations relating to the minimum information to be included in the notification, obligations for producing preliminary and final accident reports, obligations for sharing information with other licensed service providers, obligations relating to the person responsible for the site of the accident, and obligations relating to record-keeping.
APSR has the authority to impose administrative fines against those who violate the regulation amounting up to 20,000 Rial Omani.
You can read the regulation in full in English on the link below:
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Water Resources has issued the Executive Regulation of Veterinary Medicines, which is issued pursuant to the Law of Veterinary Medicines of 2017.
The regulation is based on the GCC Executive Regulation of Veterinary Medicines which was approved by the GCC Agricultural Cooperation Committee in 2011.
The regulation provides the specific details regarding licensing and registration of veterinary medicines companies and factories, the duration of the licence, the requirements of the application, general specifications regarding factories, and the obligations of the licence holder.
The regulation also covers the registration of veterinary medicines and provides details regarding the supply of samples, the examination of the registration application, the classification of veterinary medicines, and the obligations imposed on local and foreign factories.
Finally, the regulation outlines the competences of registration committees, the powers of the ministry to ban or suspend the circulation or import of veterinary medicines, and the procedures for the destruction of violating medicines.
You can read the regulation in full in English on the link below:
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Decree Monthly Digest – March 2023
Decree Monthly Digest is a summary of the most significant legislation issued in the previous month.
Royal Decrees
Seven royal decrees were issued during March, with the most significant being Royal Decree 19/2023 promulgating the Maritime Law—the text of which will be published on Sunday in the Official Gazette—followed by Royal Decree 16/2023 Approving the Accession of the Sultanate of Oman to the Arab Charter on Human Rights. Other royal decrees include Royal Decree 15/2023 Establishing the Oman Across Ages Museum and Determining Its Competences, and Royal Decree 13/2023 Ratifying a Maritime Transport Agreement with the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Ministerial Decisions
11 ministerial decisions were published in the Official Gazette during this month, with the most significant ones being MHUP’s Regulation for Providing Some of its Services through Engineering Offices and Engineering Consultancy Offices and APSR’s Regulation of the Prevention of Risks from Ground Works and Installations Relating to the Water and Wastewater Sector.
Blog Updates
Our blog featured a number of short law updates on MHUP introducing permits for the promotion of international real estate within Oman and the new regulation for providing some of its services through engineering offices.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning issued the Regulation for Providing Some of Its Services through Engineering Offices to allow these offices to provide planning and survey services to the public on behalf of the ministry.
Under this regulation, MHUP services relating to detailed cadastral survey of land plots; modification of approved land plots; placement and delivery of markers for approved land plots; merging, splitting, and dividing approved land plots; and issuing a certificate of completion of the implementation of service routes may be provided by engineering offices and engineering consultancy offices, provided that they obtain a certificate from MHUP to provide these services.
The regulation specifies the procedures and requirements for obtaining the certificate, the rights of service applicants, the consequences of committing violations by the engineering offices, and the mechanism for sharing the fees between MHUP and the engineering offices.
This regulation entered into force on 20 March 2023.
You can read the regulation in full in English on the link below: