This week the spotlight is on legal and regulatory developments in the UAE, where the authorities will start officially accepting long-term visa applications from 3 February this year. The launch date is specified in a new Decision which also states two committees will be established to evaluate visa candidates. One will evaluate investor visa applicants and the other entrepreneur, scientist and those with specialist talent visa applicants. The applications will be assessed in line with the criteria previously laid out in legislation.

As part of this significant legislative development, Lexis Middle East has added the Arabic and full text English versions of UAE Federal Cabinet Decision No. 56/2018 to the legislation part of our service. We have also added a key analysis piece from Fragomen Middle East on this development as part of our Middle East News Analysis coverage.