KUWAIT Law and Practice Contributed by: Alex Saleh, Asad Ahmad, Khaled Al Makhezeem and Liana Rashid, GLA & Company
Kuwait CPA in the required form and in accordance with the requirements under the Kuwait Competition Law. It must be approved by the Kuwait CPA before the economic concentration may be lawfully imple - mented. Pursuant to recently issued Resolution No 32 of 2026, the current thresholds are as follows: • where one of the parties to the concentra - tion achieves annual sales in Kuwait exceeding KWD1,500,000, according to the audited financial statements of the last fiscal year before the con - centration; • where the parties to the concentration collec - tively achieve aggregate annual sales exceeding KWD3,000,000, according to the audited financial statements of the last fiscal year before the con - centration, provided that the company or business being acquired achieves sales in Kuwait of no less than KWD1,500,000; and • where the value of the registered assets of the parties to the concentration in Kuwait exceeds the value of KWD7,500,000, according to the audited asset data of the last fiscal year before the concen - tration. The Kuwait Competition Law exempts specific activi - ties from being considered economic concentrations. These are as follows: • banks, insurance companies and financial institu - tions whose activities include trading in securities are exempt, provided they do not exercise the sub - stantive voting rights conferred by these securities. In order to be exempt, the security must generally be disposed of within one year from the date of acquisition; • acquisitions resulting from insolvencies, defaults, debt restructuring, compositions with creditors or similar transactions are exempt; and • restructuring within the same group of companies is exempt. These activities will also not be considered economic concentrations. • In cases of acquisition of control resulting from insolvency, default, debt rescheduling, settlements with creditors or analogous proceedings.
• In cases where the persons that form one econom - ic group perform restructuring procedures within the same group. Based on the authors’ practical experience, an exemption for a client on the grounds of restructuring procedures within the same group may also be suc - cessfully obtained. It is important to note that the persons desiring to perform an economic concentration, where an appli - cation is required, are forbidden from performing any actions or procedures to complete the concentration operations before the Kuwait CPA’s determination is issued under the Kuwait Competition Law. If the Kuwait CPA becomes aware of any steps taken towards completing a transaction before obtaining the appropriate clearance from the Kuwait CPA, penalties may be imposed. 2.2 Failure to Notify The Kuwait CPA has the authority to independently initiate research, investigations, evidence collection and inquiries in line with the provisions of the Kuwait Competition Law. Any person may report any agree - ments, acts or actions that violate the Kuwait Com - petition Law. The Kuwait Competition Law established a discipli - nary board responsible for deciding on disciplinary actions referred to it by the Kuwait CPA in relation to violations of the Kuwait Competition Law and com - plaints filed by various stakeholders. The disciplinary board may impose financial penalties of no more than 10% of the total revenues earned by the parties to the economic concentration during the previous fiscal year in the event of failure to submit the application for concentration or to provide misleading or incorrect information in the application. Since the issuance of the Kuwait Competition Law, the Kuwait CPA has consistently increased its level of investigative activity, including, in one case, fining a steel distribution company KWD250,000. This was equivalent to 1% of the company’s total revenues achieved during the fiscal year 2020/2021 and was imposed for the company’s non-compliance with the
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