Article 9 of the Saudi Competition Law

This article deals with notification of an economic concentration, which under Article 1 is any action that transfers the ownership of assets, rights, shares, stakes or obligations of one establishment to another or combines two or more managements under a joint management. It contains two provisions:

1. Notification procedures: the Law does not detail how to notify, but provides that the Implementing Regulations determine the procedures to be followed, including the content of the notification and the information and documents required. The Regulations must therefore be consulted for these details, and they cannot be inferred from the Law itself.
2. Power of inspection: the General Authority for Competition may inspect all records, data, files and documents held by the establishments concerned by the economic concentration, and obtain copies of them. This power is tied to the establishments concerned by the concentration.

The purpose is to enable the Authority to study the effect of the concentration on competition before the Board issues its decision, which under Article 10 is approval, conditional approval or rejection, with reasons required for the conditional approval and rejection decisions. Article 8 also allows the Board to exempt an establishment from the provisions on notification of concentration under conditions, including that this achieves a benefit to the consumer that outweighs the effects of limiting freedom of competition.

Establishments heading toward an economic concentration should be ready to provide the records the Authority requests, and would do well to seek a lawyer specialized in competition and commercial cases to prepare the notification file in accordance with the Regulations.