SAUDI ARABIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Alex Saleh, Asad Ahmad, Khaled al-Khashab and Shahad Al-Humaidani, GLA & Company
7. Third-Party Rights, Confidentiality and Cross-Border Co-Operation 7.1 Third-Party Rights Relevant third parties could be involved in the review process by the applicant. They could be included in the application submission or by the GAC requiring their input. Third parties have a right to request an interview or make a claim as part of a specific economic concentration investigation. The GAC may elicit information from third parties by conducting a survey. The case team may discuss its interim assess - ment with third parties in order to identify and to seek to resolve any unresolved issues. The team may present its assessment or a part of it to third parties for their opinions, while taking the need to obtain objective, impartial and substantiated opinions into account. The third parties’ interests in confidentiality will be preserved throughout the assessment and investigation process. No documents of the third parties will be shared with others, except in line with the procedures outlined in the guidelines. Where a GAC document to be released during interim consultations contains information that is confidential to a third party, the GAC will prepare a public version of that document which redacts any of the confidential information. The parties whose confidential information is to be redacted will be given an opportunity to comment on the redaction. 7.2 Contacting Third Parties See 7.1 Third-Party Rights . 7.3 Confidentiality The KSA Competition Law states that the members of the board of directors and GAC
the KSA Competition Law and other meas - ures under Article 21 of the KSA Competition Law, including requiring the economic con - centration parties to unwind the economic concentration. The GAC will also take all other relevant provisions of the KSA Competi - tion Law and the Executive Regulations into account in setting fines and other measures, including, but not limited to, Article 22 of the KSA Competition Law and Chapter 7 of the Executive Regulations. 5.6 Issuance of Decisions A formal decision permitting or prohibiting a transaction may be issued to the party by the GAC. In the event that the 90-day investigation period lapses without the issuance of a decision by the GAC, it will be considered an approval under the KSA Competition Law. All application decisions are made public (as a statistic in the GAC annual report). However, the names of the parties are not included unless they are penal - ised. 5.7 Prohibitions and Remedies for Foreign-to-Foreign Transactions The firm is not aware of the GAC having required remedies or prohibited foreign-to-foreign trans - actions. 6. Ancillary Restraints and Related Transactions 6.1 Clearance Decisions and Separate Notifications Clearance decisions will only cover competition issues.
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