Amend fines and fees to toughen penalties

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Law flawed because of legislative shortcomings

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 2: Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Competition Protection Authority Dr Rashid Al-Ajmi said the independence of the competition protection system will contribute to activating its role and increasing its impact on the Kuwaiti markets, which is the main objective of the new law, which contains some amendments and is currently considered by the Fatwa and Legislation Department, reports Al-Jarida daily.

Al-Ajmi told the daily the current law is flawed because of some legislative shortcomings of its practice, and in this regard, the Board of Directors of the Authority made a study and identified the shortcomings that are included in the provisions of the existing law.

The Council is convinced that a new competition law should be adopted in line with the best international practices to avoid the negatives of the existing legislation and define the spots that obstacle its enforcement. The most important amendments proposed to ensure the effectiveness of this law are the need to define the conditions of complaints and so the legal procedures to deal with. He added that it is required to abolish the specific control ratio by 35 percent, as well as to amend the fines and fees to be more practical in addition to toughening the penalties.

He added that the suggestions include reducing the minimum and maximum amount of money stated for reconciliation in order to encourage the violators to reconcile. He pointed out a total of 43 cases were received by the agency (acquisition, inquiry, complaint, initiative) from October 2012 until the financial year 2017/2018.

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