The Peninsula, 2 February 2022: Qatar’s International Court and Dispute Resolution Centre has announced it has amended its small claims regime.

The amendments are contained in Practice Direction No. 1/2022 which comes into force on 1 March 2022.

The amendments substantially reduce the time for a judgment to be reached.

The Centre has announced it will allocate small claims worth up to 100,000 Riyals to a specialist small claims track in the First Instance Circuit of the Court.

Filing fees will not be charged and new small claims will be determined on the basis of the papers or virtually via a remote hearing, instead of a physical hearing in Court.

Once a case has been allocated to the small claims track and issued by the Registry, a claimant will have seven days to serve the Claim Form and any supporting documentation on the defendant. Previously they had four months.

In another significant change, the defendant will now have 14 days instead of 28 days to respond.

The aim is to continue streamlining the judicial process for all of the parties.

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