On February 23, 2013, the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”) competition law (the “Law”) entered into force.
Companies benefited from a six month transition period after the Law entered into force, presumably to enable them to review their current trade practices and ensure that the latter did not constitute anti-competitive practices. However, in practice, due to the delay in issuing implementing regulations, the Law has never been applied so far and, thus, companies have had significantly longer to prepare for the impact of the Law. The UAE competition law and merger control framework is now in place. Although some details of how the rules will be implemented are yet to be clarified, all UAE-based companies and potential bidders for them should now consider carefully how the Law impacts them.