KUWAIT Law and Practice Contributed by: Sam Habbas, Luis Cunha, Hisham Al-Quraan and Mustafa Sayed, ASAR – Al Ruwayeh & Partners
The application to be submitted to the CPA should include confirmation of the payment of an adminis - tration fee in an amount equal to 0.1% of the paid capital or the aggregate value of the assets of the relevant persons in Kuwait, whichever is less, subject to a maximum of KWD100,000. The CPA should then examine the application to determine the possible negative consequences of the economic concentra - tion on free competition. Given the timelines afforded to the CPA in evaluating such application, this process may take several months to complete, but currently, in practice, this would take two months. 6.3 Cartels The Competition Law guarantees the freedom of exer - cising economic activity in a manner that does not affect free competition for all in Kuwait. The Com - petition Law also contains a general prohibition on acting in an anti-competitive manner (by stating that all agreements, practices, etc, that are harmful to free competition are prohibited) and elaborates on par - ticular agreements/practices that are restricted. The Competition Law provides that it shall apply to all acts perpetrated abroad that affect competition in Kuwait. The Competition Law has introduced the concepts of horizontal relationships and vertical relationships into Kuwaiti law. Persons are in a horizontal relationship when they are on the same level of production/distribution level in a particular market, whereas a vertical relationship exists when they are on different levels of a produc - tion or distribution chain of a particular market. In a horizontal relationship, parties are restricted from: • setting the prices of products, either directly or indirectly, whether by increasing, decreasing, fixing the price or imposing any commercial restrictive requirements relevant to the sale or distribution of commodities or the provision of service or any other form contrary to ordinary market forces; • dividing the product markets according to areas, volume of sales or purchases or products being sold in any other manner;
• fixing the quantity of production, distribution or sale for commodities or determining a specific method or means for the provision of a service; • restricting the technical development or investment in connection to the production, distribution or sale of a commodity or provision of a service; and • colluding in submitting bids or offers for the sale, purchase or provision of any commodity. Significantly, the Competition Law provides that the CPA is to provide further guidance on what is permit - ted/restricted in relation to persons in vertical relation - ships; such guidance remains outstanding. 6.4 Abuse of Dominant Position See 6.1 Merger Control Notification and 6.3 Cartels . Law No 71 of 2013 (the “Patent Law”) addresses pat - ent protection issues in Kuwait. Although the Patent Law does not expressly define the word “patents”, Article 3 provides what should not be considered as a patent, including: • discoveries, scientific theories, mathematical meth - ods and computer programs; • schemes, rules and methods of doing business, practising pure mental activities, and playing a game; • plants and animals and the biological processes used to produce plants or animals, with the excep - tion of microbiology processes and the products of these processes; and • methods for treating the human or animal body surgically or therapeutically, and methods of diag - nosing disease applied to the human or animal body, with the exception of products that are used in any of these methods. The Patent Law does not protect plant varieties and animal species. 7. Intellectual Property 7.1 Patents According to Article 15, patents are valid for a period of four years, but can be renewed for cumulative peri - ods of up to 20 years.
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