Companies in Qatar will have another six months to comply with the new Commercial Companies Law no 11 of 2015, from February 7.
The Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC) on Sunday announced extension of the grace period by another six months for companies to comply with the new law.
The Cabinet had earlier approved the draft of this decision at its regular meeting (No 22 for 2016) held on June 1 last year.
This is the third extension given to companies in this regard, a statement issued by MEC said.
According to Qatar News Agency the latest extension is granted by the government in an effort to ease commercial activities, strengthen the national economy, enable competition locally and abroad, and enhance the private sector and facilitate its contribution to Qatar’s economic development.
Besides, MEC wants to support the commercial companies in the country and give them enough time to process their documents and registration accordingly. In this way, they would be able to avoid any penalty for failing to comply with the new regulations in time.
HH the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al- Thani had issued law No. 11 of 2015 referred to as the new Qatar Commercial Companies’ Law in June 2015.
The new law requires corporate governance report to be an integral part of the General Assembly.
As per the new law, there are changes in the forms of business entities and private establishments and single person companies are no longer a form of business entities.
The permitted forms of business entities in the new law are: limited liability companies, public shareholding company, private shareholding company, joint venture company, limited partnership, equities partnership and general partnership.
Any company that does not take any of the above forms shall be deemed null and void.
There has been a general “tightening” of the timelines to complete the various registration processes. Existing time periods have been reduced, materially in some instances, and some new time periods have been introduced, like an application to register a limited liability company (LLC) must be considered and a response issued by the MEC within 15 days from the date of submission.
References to the Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA), its rules and regulations and its supervisory obligations to public shareholding companies listed on the Qatar Exchange, appear in the new companies law.
The new Companies Law should be published in two local newspapers, one of which must be Arabic. In addition entities are directed under the law to make publications available on their websites if they have them, such as the publication of the memorandum and articles of association of public shareholding companies.
