Author: Riyadh Al-Balushi

The Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion (وزارة التجارة والصناعة وترويج الاستثمار) is the body responsible for regulating commerce and industry and for promoting investment in the Sultanate of Oman. It is responsible for maintaining the Commercial Register, setting standards, registering intellectual property, and protecting the market from anti-competitive and monopolistic practices, among other things.

The Foreign Ministry (وزارة الخارجية) is the body responsible for managing all foreign relations of the Sultanate of Oman and is the official channel for communicating with other states. Its responsibilities include carrying out the procedures for issuing royal decrees acceding into and ratifying treaties and also attesting official documents issued by the Omani government.

Companies in Oman are primarily regulated by the Commercial Companies Law (CCL), which provides the legal framework for establishing companies, the types of companies available, incorporation requirements, as well as shareholder and director rights and obligations. This document provides an overview of the types of companies available under the CCL.

The Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs (وزارة العدل والشؤون القانونية) was established in the year 2020 as the successor to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Legal Affairs. Its primary functions are reviewing legislation, issuing legal opinions to government entities, reviewing government contracts worth more than 5,000,000 Rial Omani, reviewing international agreements, supervising lawyers, regulating expert undertakings before the courts, and publishing the Official Gazette.

The Basic Statute of the State is the constitution of the Sultanate of Oman. It was issued for the very first time by Sultan Qaboos in 1996 and then amended in 2011. Sultan Haitham issued a new revamped Basic Statute of the State in 2021 with a number of amendments, the most important being the process for the appointment of a crown prince.

The Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs (MJLA) held that the Oman Housing Bank, a government-owned enterprise under the Oman Investment Authority, is exempt from value added tax (VAT).

The Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs (MJLA) deemed that the first sale of real estate by the developer in integrated tourism complexes is not exempt from value added tax (VAT).

The Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs (MJLA) deemed the Corporate Governance Principles for Government-Owned Companies issued by the Capital Market Authority (CMA) to be invalid due to the failure of the CMA to publish such principles in the Official Gazette and the lack of competence of the Executive President of the CMA to issue them. The MJLA also held that companies subordinate to the Oman Investment Authority are not exempt from the scope of such principles.

The Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs (MJLA) deemed that the State Audit Institute (SAI) has a duty to release the confidential emails of a third-party held in its possession to support the defence of the government against the claims made by that third-party in an arbitration case.

An employee sued his employer for compensation for unpaid overtime working hours on the basis of two extra hours plus a one-hour break. The Supreme Court held that break time is not calculated as part of unpaid overtime.