Benjamin Filaferro, Author at LexisNexis Middle East

Weekly Spotlight: A Series of Employment and Immigration Developments in the UAE

24/06/201811/12/2019
by Benjamin Filaferro

This week the spotlight is on employment and immigration developments in the UAE, where additional changes to the country’s visa system and an upcoming amnesty for illegal residents have been announced by the Cabinet at its latest session. These changes are in line with earlier announcements, including the introduction of a new insurance scheme which will replace the bank guarantees system in the country. In the last quarter of 2018, a new one-year permit will be introduced for women and their children residing in the UAE without a visa sponsor due to certain circumstances including a divorce or death of their husband. Currently, no similar provision is guaranteed in the immigration regulations and the decision of allowing residency in these cases is discretionary.

Nationals of countries affected by war or natural disasters will be offered an extendable one-year residency permit free of charge, regardless of their current visa status. No specific list of countries has been issued yet. According to the announcement, the regulation will be in effect from 1 August until 31 October 2018.

Finally, the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship has announced an amnesty initiative called ‘Protect Yourself by Modifying Your Status’ which is expected to be launched in the coming weeks. The programme is aimed at allowing illegal residents in the UAE to correct their immigration status. Foreign nationals will have a choice to depart from the country without paying fines and without an immigration ban, or to change their status to employment. Those who entered illegally will be allowed to depart and will be issued with a two-year immigration ban.

Uncategorized

Iraq’s Top Court Upholds Law Ordering Hand Recount of Election Ballots

24/06/201811/12/2019
by Benjamin Filaferro

After two months of electoral turmoil, the highest court of Iraq ordered on Thursday a manual recount of all the votes casted during the last legislative elections of May 12.

Despite an election that seemed optimistic – at least from a legal and procedural standpoint, Iraq is still living great political uncertainty. Several political parties have come out with accusations of fraud – and such claims have obviously increased doubts on the electoral results in a country still struggling to perfect its democratic process. As a result the Iraqi Parliament demanded a recount of all votes.

Supreme Judicial Council President, Chief Justice Medhat al-Mahmoud announced on Thursday that “The Court finds the decision of Parliament [taken on 6 June] in favor of manual counting does not violate the provisions of the Constitution”.

What does this mean for the Iraqi democratic process? Should Iraqis be reassured that the Rule of Law, through independent courts, have taken on the fight for fair élections?

Read the full story here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-iraqs-top-court-upholds-law-ordering-hand-recount-of-election-ballots/

News developments

Oman: Shoura Council is Set to Discuss a Number of Draft Laws

23/06/201811/12/2019
by Benjamin Filaferro

Oman’s Shoura Council is set to discuss a number of draft laws including imposing selective tax which has been referred to it by the Council of Ministers. The Council is also set to discuss a draft law to amend Article 4 of the Foreigners Residency Law. In addition they will discuss a proposal to amend the Social Housing Law.

News developments

KSA: Unified Contract to Start Being Used in Last Quarter of 2018

23/06/201811/12/2019
by Benjamin Filaferro

Sources from the Saudi Arabian Housing Ministry have said it is likely the Ministry, through its electronic Ejaar rent system will start using unified contracts for the commercial sector by the last quarter of this year. The sources added the Ministry has referred the contract template to the Justice Ministry to consider before it is implemented.

Weekly Spotlight

Bahrain: Australian Court Rejects ‘Permanent Home’ Tax Appeal

18/06/201811/12/2019
by Benjamin Filaferro

Australia’s Federal Court rejected an appeal on 8 June 2018 against an issued but undisclosed tax assessment from the Australian Taxation Office for the 2011 income year.

The case revolved around whether or not an apartment in Bahrain was a permanent home for tax purposes on 8 June 2018 under the ‘domicile’ test.

The case involved a former aircraft engineer, Glenn Harding who lived in Bahrain for more than five years in the same block of fully-furnished apartments. He had appealed on the basis he was not a ‘resident’ in the 2011 income year, but the Federal Court rejected that partly because of the type of accommodation he lived in.

The ruling means renting out a fully-furnished apartment overseas may not be enough to convince the tax office an individual is a non-resident for tax purposes.

News developments

The Good, The (Not) Bad And The Uncertain: The Impact of the UAE’s New Federal Arbitration Law – Pinsent Masons

17/06/201811/12/2019
by Benjamin Filaferro

The final stage of the legislative process for the new UAE Arbitration law (Federal Law No. 6/2018 on Arbitration in Commercial Disputes) took place with the publication of the new law in Official Gazette issue No. 630 dated 15 May 2018. The new law comes into effect on 16 June 2018, one month from the day following its official publication.

The new Arbitration law is a welcome advance for arbitration in the UAE. It expressly repeals the former law governing arbitration in the UAE since 1992, contained in a short chapter of the Federal Civil Procedure Code (Federal Law No. 11/1992), replacing it with a modern law based on the internationally recognised and accepted UNCITRAL Model Law.

Article 59 of the new UAE Arbitration law provides for its immediate application to all existing arbitrations, notwithstanding that they were commenced prior to the law coming into effect. Importantly, the introduction of the new law will not invalidate any aspect of the proceedings that took place before it came into effect. Parties currently in arbitration will need to ensure that they are fully aware of all of the changes introduced by the new law. However, it is unclear how those who are contemplating challenging an award made against them prior to the law coming into effect will be impacted by the new law, and in particular the new 30 day time limit which will apply for raising a challenge to an award.

While significant positive change will be brought about by the introduction of this new law, some of the old uncertainties remain unaddressed and a few new ones will emerge. On balance, however, the impact of the new law is expected to be overwhelmingly positive for the legal community and the wider business community, both within the UAE and abroad.

To mark the announcement of the commencement of the new UAE Arbitration law, Bill Smith and Maria Mazzawi from Pinsent Masons prepared a comprehensive analysis of the new law, which explains which issues troubling arbitration in the past have been addressed by the new law, and which have not. We have also examined whether there might be any new uncertainties introduced by the new law.

The enactment of the new Arbitration law has been designed to attract further foreign direct investment into the UAE, and to firmly reinforce the UAE’s place as the most progressive market for doing business in the Middle East region. Its introduction provides an international framework, which is already familiar to the global business community, for the fair and efficient resolution of their commercial disputes.

Read full article here: www.pinsentmasons.com/Global/UAE_Arbitration_law_update.pdf

News developments

Egypt: The New Universal Health Insurance Law Executive Regulations

17/06/201811/12/2019
by Benjamin Filaferro

The Executive Regulations of the Universal Health Insurance Law, Egypt Law No 2/2018 (the Law) were issued by virtue of the Egypt Prime Minister Decree No 909/2018 on 8 May 2018 (the Regulations). The Regulations have mainly further elaborated on the role and mandates of the three authorities that will replace the General Authority for Health Insurance.

Click here to view the highlights of the most notable provisions: https://www.lexismiddleeast.com/doc/2661065_2661066

News developments

The Impacts of the GDPR on Corporate Governance Practices in the GCC – by Robert L. Ford

10/06/201811/12/2019
by Benjamin Filaferro

The European Parliament and Council passed a regulation (EU) 2016/679 to refresh the data and privacy protection laws for European Union States. The new regulation is commonly known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and came into effect on 25 May 2018. The GDPR has defined the rights of EU individuals relating to how their data is collected, stored, processed and used by organisations. Any organisation that handles the data of any EU citizen is bound by the provisions of the GDPR. This regulation is applicable globally and fines of up to 4% of worldwide turnover or 20 million euros (whichever is greater) will be levied on businesses breaching them. GCC organisations and businesses need to consider whether they collect, store, process or control any data for EU citizens and revise their own governance and enterprise risk management frameworks to comply with the GDPR provisions.

Read full article here.

News developments

Bahrain to Offer 10-year Residency Visas to Foreign Investors – LNB News ( 06/06/2018)

10/06/201811/12/2019
by Benjamin Filaferro

In a bid to boost foreign investment, the Bahraini authorities have announced they are planning on issuing ten-year residency visas to foreign investors.

The visas will be renewable and will enable foreign investors to self-sponsor themselves. It follows an announcement by the UAE authorities that they were going to relax their investment rules and introduce a ten-year visa for investors and innovators as well as medical, scientific, research and technical professionals.

News developments

Saudi Arabia: E-medicine System Completed – LNB News (05/06/2018)

10/06/201811/12/2019
by Benjamin Filaferro

Newspaper: Al-Madina, 4 June 2018

Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Food and Medicine has announced it has completed an e-medicine system to track medicine from production to customers.

The aim is to ensure medicines are readily available and are safe. The Authority has placed barcodes on packaging and created the necessary technical infrastructure to host the movement details of medicines. They are also working with relevant parties including factories, importers, storage units and distribution centres, hospitals and pharmacies to implement the system.