Agency Law in the Gulf - GCC Approaches and Egyptian Influences

The idea for this book came about in 2018 when Lexis Middle East published a book entitled Dispute Resolution in the Gulf, GCC Approaches & Egyptian Influences. The aim was to provide practical comparative commentary on a specific legal area for every jurisdiction in the GCC and Egypt. As a result of the pioneering work of the Egyptian legal scholar Abd el-Razzak el-Sanhuri, who helped develop and inspire the legislative frameworks in five of those six countries, and the role Egyptian judges have played in GCC courts, Egypt has also an important influence on GCC legal systems.

Agency was an obvious candidate for the next title in the series. Multinational companies often see franchising or distribution agreements as a useful mechanism for their initial expansion plans in the GCC.

However, it is a legal area, which in the GCC needs to be handled with care. Even though the numbers of specialist laws covering the different areas of the agency topic and specialist agreement types can be less extensive than in some other jurisdictions, there can be complex rules on who can be an agent, how such agreements are registered, the circumstances under which they can be terminated and exclusivity.

As a result of this complexity, it is a topic which comes up with worrying frequency when we are covering GCC cases on the Lexis Middle East online service.

The aim of this book therefore is to provide in-house lawyers and practitioners with a clear, easy to access explanation of the exact position in each of these jurisdictions and help to reduce the risk when they are considering the agency route (in whatever form) in the GCC region.