The Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs recently published last month in the Official Gazette a brand new Regulation on the Supervision of Lawyers, Law Offices, and Civil Law Firms regarding Anti-money Laundering and Counter-terrorist Financing. This regulation is part of a suite of regulations that the Omani government issued last month to comply with the latest recommendations made by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). This particular regulation updates the regulation from 2021 covering the same topic. Failure to comply with the new regulation exposes lawyers, law offices, and civil law firms to penalties including fines up to 100,000 Rial Omani and the suspension of their licences.
This guest blog post is contributed by Amira Taqi – Group Legal Counsel at Minerals Development Oman.
The mining industry in the Sultanate of Oman is diversifying and developing at an appreciable pace. The Ministry of Energy and Minerals (MEM) has deployed a new strategy to expand the mining sector by recently granting Minerals Development Oman (MDO), a strategic government-owned investor, concessionary exploration-to-mining rights over areas covering 21,5002km. This blog post aims to explain to readers the importance of the said concession agreements, their purpose, comparative advantage to the conventional licensing mechanism, and strategic importance to investors and to Oman.
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2022: The Year in Review
Instead of doing our usual monthly digest, we are starting the year 2023 with a reflection on the most significant royal decrees that were issued in the year 2022:
The Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion (MOCIIP) published in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette a regulation governing the activities of marketing and promotion on internet websites and social media that requires social media influencers to register with the government and requires all companies using their service to verify the existence of a licence before dealing with them. The new regulation enters into force in 90 days and imposes fines of up to 1,000 Rial Omani.
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Decree Subscription Prices
As previously announced, starting January 2023, Decree will graduate out of its beta phase and will become available as a paid subscription service.
The TRA published on Sunday this week a brand new Regulation Governing Domain Names. This regulation makes a number of important changes that open up the domain name market by providing a mechanism for allowing companies with no connection to Oman to register <.om> domain names and permitting the transfer of the registration of domain names between registrants without any apparent restrictions. The regulation also attempts to make the WHOIS system for <.om> domain names compatible with the Personal Data Protection Law that is due to enter into force early next year. This post provides an overview of some key aspects of this new regulation.
Decree Monthly Digest is a summary of the most significant legislation issued in the previous month.
The month of November was busy with a number of important royal decrees and ministerial decisions issued.
In regard to royal decrees, Royal Decree 70/2022 appointed Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Hinai as Oman’s first-ever Ambassador-at-Large (Sheikh Abdulaziz was more recently known for being Oman’s ambassador to the UK before this role), Royal Decree 71/2022 declared areas in the Wilayat of Yanqul as having public benefit status to allow them to be expropriated by the government for a project to develop mines in Block A1-12, Royal Decree 72/2022 approved Oman’s accession to the Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Relating to International Civil Aviation, while Royal Decree 73/2022 overhauled the organisational structure of the State Audit Institution.
In regard to ministerial decisions, many significant decisions were issued including CMA’s Decision 144/2022 on the Visitors Health Insurance Policy Form, MOCIIP’s Decision 574/2022 on the Governance Regulation for Foreign Investor Applications Approval Offices, MJLA’s Decision 113/2022 on the Code of Conduct for Experts, and TRA’s Decision 1152/2/3/2022-5 on the Regulation Governing Domain Names.
It has not been a year since the beta version of Decree launched, and the website has already grown to become the biggest English language database of Omani legislation available anywhere with a complete title index of all Omani royal decrees and ministerial decisions published in the Official Gazette since 1974 onwards, a full-text catalogue of essentially every single royal decrees issued in the past six years, a collection of over a 150 standalone laws with all their amendments consolidated, the most comprehensive catalogue of Omani treaties available on the internet with over 800 documents, along with a growing collection of the most recent ministerial decisions and regulations issued in the Official Gazette.
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Oman Pledges Net Zero
Back in June 2022, I had predicted that Oman would pledge to achieve net zero by 2050. What I had not predicted was how soon this pledge would come. As you have probably heard by now, Oman has, in the lead-up to COP 27, pledged to achieve net zero by 2050.
This is fantastic news—it demonstrates Oman’s commitments to the objectives of the Paris Agreement and will most certainly galvanise its government and the private sector towards achieving this goal. However, it is also a daunting task that requires a fundamental rethink on how we use energy. Oman will have to take many unprecedented steps to fulfil this laudable goal, so how does it go on about it?
Decree Monthly Digest is a summary of the most significant legislation issued in the previous month.
October was a relatively busy month on Decree as ten royal decrees were issued on a variety of topics ranging from the amendment of laws and ratification of treaties, to government restructuring and the approval of petroleum agreements.
The most significant royal decrees issued last month are arguably Royal Decree 68/2022 Amending Some Provisions of the Penal Law, which includes, among other things, the criminalisation of the act of insulting the wife and children of the Sultan, and Royal Decree 69/2022 Amending Some Provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law, which introduces a new procedure for obtaining the approval of the Council of Ministers as a pre-requisite for prosecuting ministers for criminal misconduct. Royal Decree 60/2022 was also a significant royal decree as it transferred the climate affairs competences of the Civil Aviation Authority to the Environment Authority. Other significant royal decrees include Royal Decree 61/2022 on Oman’s accession to the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, Royal Decree 66/2022 issuing a licence to Oman Technology Infrastructure Company to build and operate passive infrastructure for telecommunications towers, and Royal Decree 67/2022 approving the petroleum agreement between the Government of the Sultanate of Oman and Shell Integrated Gas Oman BV, Alizz Gas Development LLC, and Totalenergies EP Oman Block 11 SAS for Block 11.
This month also had several important ministerial decisions including Decision 456/2022 of the Tax Authority amending the Executive Regulation of the VAT Law, and Decision 164/202 of the Supreme Judicial Council determining the geographical jurisdiction of the administrative circuits in Muscat, Salalah and Sohar.