Kuwait a favorable place for business, says Faisal Marrah

‘Financial, banking institutions in the country are strong’

With the rapid growth in technology, intellectual property rights is fast gaining popularity in the world, and Kuwait as a strategically important geo-political entity is not immune to this transformation.

Advocate Faisal Marrah, a lawyer with more than 12 years experience in Kuwait, was talking to the Arab recently about Kuwait’s legal system and the new areas of law that will need more experts in the near future. Marrah is a business lawyer, representing companies and business firms.

Explaining intellectual property, Marrah said it includes patents, trademarks, copyrights and industrial designs. He took a recent example of a very famous supermarket chain that had to change its name because of copyrights issues. When a firm or a company feels that another business is using its registered identity, the aggrieved party can file a litigation to retain its right.

World Trade Organization is the international regulatory body on issues pertaining to intellectual rights and Kuwait is a member of the organization. In addition to this, Kuwait has issued legislations to back up its international obligations, Marrah

notes.

Protection

Currently, laws are in place in Kuwait to provide copyrights protection to businesses and individuals. This right can be exercised even by non-citizens in Kuwait, provided their copyrights are registered in Kuwait, or they belong to countries with membership in copyrights regulatory bodies recognized by Kuwait.

Marrah handles a variety of cases under commercial law including banking regulation, business formation, business regulation, commercial arbitration, trade law, construction contracts, construction litigation, shareholder agreements, share purchase agreements, stock exchange law and others.

Marrah earned his law degree from Egypt, where he practiced before immigrating to Kuwait. As Kuwaiti law has adopted many features of Egyptian law, Marrah found it easy to get accustomed to the system here.

Imposes

Talking about business in Kuwait, Marrah said that Kuwait is well positioned geographically, and enjoys much political stability to emerge as a regional business hub. It has easy access to the important markets in the region, almost falling centrally between Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq.

Moreover, Kuwait is a favorable place for businesses as it imposes low taxes and low customs duties on imports. Many essential commodities are fully exempted from duties. There are no restrictions on foreign exchange transactions too.

Kuwait’s surpluses and the emphasis on private sector are making the country emergent on the regional commercial sector. The financial and banking institutions in the country are strong.

Asked about Marrah’s more memorable cases, the lawyer answered that it pertains to a shipment of products from an Asian country which were of lower quality than the specifications of the client. The dispute was over the details of specifications, which the supplier argued was misleading. However, the client had only used internationally accepted engineering terms in the specification. Marrah’s client won the case decisively, and the supplier was ordered to replace the shipment with the right products.

Marrah is currently working as a senior legal advisor at Tamer Associates for Legal Consultations, and is involved along with his seniors in compiling a handbook explaining Kuwait’s commercial laws and some basic legal issues to be borne in mind while starting a business in Kuwait.