1. Have there been any recent developments regarding the Qatar merger control regime and are any updates/developments expected in the coming year? Are there any other ‘hot’ merger control issues in Qatar?

Qatar was one of the first Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to enact a competition law in 2006. However, since then there has been little regulatory and enforcement activity. Notably, the competition authority contemplated in Law 19/2006 on the Protection of Competition and the Prevention of Monopolistic Practices (Competition Law) as an authority directly reporting to the Minister of Commerce and Industry has not been established yet. Instead, antitrust matters—including merger control—remain within the authority of the Competition Protection Department (Authority)—a department under the Assistant Deputy Minister for Consumer Affairs; an interim measure that now persists since nearly 20 years.

The Qatari merger control regime remains rudimentary compared to regional counterparts such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or