Dozens of international law firms operate in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for several years without regulation, so is this acceptable, and can national offices cover the legal field for them, this is what we will discuss in this brief study.
First, what is the advantage of foreign offices for government and private agencies to turn to? The activities of foreign offices can be limited to the following:
1- Services provided to banks and financing companies. International offices formulate facilities agreements, financing products, multiple banking services, drafting conditions for sukuk, crowdfunding and the like.
2- Services provided by insurance companies, and this includes insurance products by their agreements.
3- Services provided to major industrial companies, such as SABIC, the General Desalination Corporation, Aramco, and similar companies in the petrochemical activity.
4- Services provided to airlines, including the purchase and rental of aircraft, and the like.
5- Services provided to financial companies, from undertaking to cover underwriting, offering services for underwriting, agreements to offer closed and open investment funds and the like.
6- Services to merge companies, take possession of one another, separate them from each other, and liquidate them, including letters of intent, memoranda of understanding and the final agreement.
7- Corporate services such as incorporation contracts, internal regulations, partnership contracts, commercial agencies and the like, and offering services for subscription from offering the prospectus and other requirements of the Capital Market Authority.
8- Services provided to government agencies to formulate external regulations and consultations.
The major authorities still do not trust the national lawyer and their confidence in the foreign lawyer, due to the reasons:
1- Foreign office experience, some of which are more than one hundred years old.
2 – The fact that these offices have a superior ability to camouflage the client along the length of the agreements and the many precautions that are not needed in the Saudi judiciary.
3- Use the difficult English vocabulary and complex structures that are not easily understood by those who speak English.
This resulted in the following:
1- Waste in the national economy, so that hundreds of millions are transferred abroad without the country benefiting from it.
2- Not transferring the local expertise, as these offices operate under the scope of the commercial cover-up, and the Saudi has only a name and an amount of money in exchange for using his name.
3- Resorting to the English courts or the arbitration chamber in Paris because the foreign lawyer did not understand the local laws and Islamic Sharia.
Try to solve:
Clifford Chance, who was working in Saudi Arabia in an irregular manner, sought to correct her situation, and a permit was issued by the Ministry of Commerce. One of the lawyers objected to an administrative lawsuit. With the statement of the General Investment Authority.
Some say that foreign offices practice legal advice, so why is it not available to them, so that the pleading is limited to the Saudi lawyer, and foreign offices are allowed to provide legal advice, as well as they are able to provide other consultations after taking official approvals, and in my view this is contrary to the system, as the first article of The legal system issued by the Royal Decree Decree M / 38 dated 28/7/1422 AH, as follows:
“The legal profession in this system means:
– Pleading with others before the courts, the Board of Grievances, and the committees formed in accordance with the regulations, orders and decisions to hear cases within its competence,
– Practicing Sharia and legal consultations.
Whoever practices this profession is called a lawyer and every person has the right to plead for himself.
Article 3 of the legal system stipulated that whoever engages in the legal profession must have his name registered in the schedule of practicing lawyers with the requirement that he be a Saudi, and a non-Saudi may practice the legal profession according to the agreements stipulated by the Kingdom and other countries.
And some thought that this paragraph would allow a non-Saudi to obtain the permit based on what was mentioned in the third document of the World Trade Organization documents approved by the Kingdom according to the royal decree number M / 54 and the date of 9/21/1426 AH as it provided services, including consultations, and was not done in it. Require the approval of the Ministry of Justice to include the foreigner in the list of practicing lawyers.
It seems that this understanding is not accurate, because this is conditional on the approval of the local authorities, and it is in the Kingdom the General Investment Authority, and the first article of the investment system regulation stated the following:
Foreign investor: A natural person who does not possess Saudi Arabia nationality, or a legal person in which all partners do not have Saudi Arabia nationality.
A foreign lawyer includes his individual entry or in partnership with others. In Article 4 of the system:
Foreign investments authorized to operate in accordance with the provisions of the system and these regulations may be in one of the following two forms:
1. Facilities owned by a national and a foreign investor
2. Establishments wholly owned by a foreign investor.
The system stipulated that the foreigner obtain a permit before engaging in any activity inside the Kingdom. In Article 2, it stated the following:
The Investment Authority issues the license to foreign entities that wish to engage in any activity inside the Kingdom, permanently or temporarily.
The approval of the Ministry of Justice is a condition for foreign offices to obtain the permit, and it is based on this that Article Seven of the executive regulations of the foreign investment system confirmed the requirement of the approval of the relevant authorities, and the Ministry of Justice is the competent body of law firms.
And some based on the permissibility of registering a foreign law firm according to the system of professional companies, as it was mentioned in the first article that it is permissible for the participation of Saudi professionals licensed to specialized foreign professional companies according to the conditions specified in the second article of the executive regulations of the system,
In my view, this is not accurate. Article 18 of the Foreign Investment Law
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