Lissack and Horlick on Bribery and Corruption: The Middle East

Dr Ali Almihdar authored chapter 31 of Lissack & Horlick on Bribery and Corruption. Ali’s new chapter focuses on the scale of corruption in the Middle East and the major challenges it presents. As part of a serialisation of chapters that members of Outer Temple contributed to in this latest edition, the authors have been summarising their chapters every week.

This Chapter is designed to provide a survey of one of the most lamentable traits in human behaviour. The geographical area that it is meant to cover is what is the Middle East and more specifically the Gulf Cooperation Council States. Its temporal span starts from before the advent of the religion of Islam in the Arabian peninsula to today’s era of energised legislative activity in all the States concerned, all determined not to be viewed as showing any tolerance of corruption in any guise or form.

From a general account of corrupt practices in the region, the Chapter proceeds on a comparative route discussing the main International Conventions and Treaties on the subject. In a nutshell it lists the Conventions and Treaties generated by such institutions as the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council. It then proceeds to give greater detail of the national laws on corruption and bribery in each of the GCC countries, namely Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia. The detailed account of how these GCC countries developed their strategies and the legal instruments they put in place to implement them give a sense of how seriously these countries now view the problem wrought by corruption and bribery and the degree to which each State is going to show that its measures are effective and must be seen to be effective.

The story that this Chapter tells should give comfort to parties that have or hope to have interests or business dealings with counterparts in this region. It should be of interest to such parties whether their business is trade in goods or services or in the field of providing professional consulting including of course the work of legal practitioners.

Read the Chapter

Ali’s chapter looks at the law in the Middle East and more specifically the Gulf Cooperation Council States in more detail.

The full chapter is available for Lexis Nexis subscribers here.

About the Author

Dr Ali Almihdar brings to the Bar of England and Wales much experience of legal practice in the Middle East. He splits his professional time equally between Saudi Arabia and London. His work covers the full spectrum of commercial legal practice from advice to drafting, arbitrations to advocacy. He has offered Saudi legal advice and services over a wide range of subjects including advising clients in negotiation of contracts, formation of Saudi Companies, foreign capital investment licences for temporary or continuing commercial activities in the Kingdom, shipping, intellectual property matters, agency and distributorship, construction projects, arbitration, litigation before courts and tribunals, labour law matters, private client, family and succession, and general Saudi, Gulf States and Yemeni commercial and corporate legal advice.

Find Out More

If you would like to discuss any of the issues covered in this article please contact Ali directly or via his Practice Management Team; David Smith on +44 (0)20 7427 4905 or Colin Bunyan on +44 (0)20 7427 4886.

External Publications 9 Dec, 2020