Article 2 of the Saudi Commercial Agencies Law

This is a transitional article that dealt with the position of those who were working as commercial agents when the Law was issued without meeting the conditions of Article 1, which are that the agent be a Saudi, and that an agent company have wholly Saudi capital and Saudi board members and authorized signatories.

Instead of stopping immediately, the Law gave them a period for two things:

• Winding up their existing business.
• Transferring it to Saudi commercial agents.

The text set a ceiling for this period: no more than two years from the date the Law took effect. It did not make the period the same for everyone, but gave the Minister of Commerce and Industry the power to set the period for each agent individually, taking into account three things:

1. The speed of winding up.
2. The nature of the agent's business.
3. The time limit mentioned, that is, that the period not exceed two years.

After that Article 3 comes to require that no one carry on the business of a commercial agent until registered in the register prepared for that in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

This Article is tied to the period when the Law began to apply, so its practical effect today is limited, but it shows that the Law applied the Saudi nationality condition even to agencies existing before it was issued. Anyone with a matter concerning an old agency may consult a lawyer specialized in commercial cases and agencies.