Law & Regulation

Law No. 19 of 2006 Concerning Protection of Competition and Prevention of Monopolistic Practices

QatarCompetitionIn Force

Qatar's principal competition/antitrust statute. Prohibits anti-competitive agreements (price-fixing, market allocation, output restriction, exclusionary conduct) and abuse of dominant/monopolistic market positions. Requires notification to the competent Committee of mergers, acquisitions, or other transactions that may result in control or dominance of the Qatari market -- no fixed quantitative (turnover/asset/market-share) threshold is set in the Law; jurisdiction and review are applied case-by-case based on potential market impact. Applies to private-sector business activity; does not apply to governmental acts or entities controlled/supervised by the state. Enforced by the Competition Protection and Anti-Monopoly Practices Committee, currently sitting within the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MOCI).

Legal Significance

What This Instrument Does

Law No. 19 of 2006 establishes Qatar’s principal statutory framework for protecting competition and addressing monopolistic practices. It regulates anti-competitive agreements or arrangements, conduct associated with dominant market positions, and economic concentrations within the scope defined by the Law. It also provides for exemptions or exclusions where the statutory conditions apply and establishes an administrative enforcement architecture, information-gathering powers and consequences for contravention. The Law requires market-sensitive analysis. Similar contractual provisions may have different outcomes depending on the relevant market, competitive effects, market power, statutory exemption and regulatory process.

Why It Matters

Infrastructure markets often combine limited numbers of qualified bidders, long-term exclusivity, network characteristics, regulated interfaces and acquisitions of strategic assets. Consortium formation, joint bidding, territorial or customer restrictions, long-term offtake, access arrangements and project-company acquisitions can therefore raise competition questions even when they serve legitimate project objectives. The Law matters at both contract and transaction level: parties must consider prohibited coordination, dominance risk and concentration control before signing or completing relevant arrangements.

Key Provisions

  • Scope and protected competitive process

    The persons, activities and conduct to which the framework applies and the objective of protecting competition.

  • Anti-competitive agreements and arrangements

    Prohibitions directed at agreements, contracts or coordination that restrict competition through specified conduct or effects.

  • Price and trading-condition coordination

    Treatment of arrangements concerning prices, sale or purchase conditions and other competitively sensitive terms.

  • Market allocation and output restrictions

    Conduct dividing markets, customers or sources of supply, or restricting production, distribution or availability.

  • Bid and tender coordination

    Competition risks associated with coordination affecting tenders or bids.

  • Abuse of dominant position

    Restrictions on conduct by an undertaking with the relevant market power, potentially including exclusionary, discriminatory or exploitative practices specified by the Law.

  • Relevant market and dominance assessment

    The economic and factual framework needed to evaluate products/services, geography, substitution and market power.

  • Economic concentration

    Control of mergers, acquisitions or other combinations falling within the statutory concept.

  • Exemptions, exceptions and public-interest treatment

    Statutory routes or exclusions under which otherwise restricted conduct may receive different treatment.

  • Competent authority and committee architecture

    Institutional responsibilities for administering and enforcing the framework. The unresolved citations/status of separate committee or implementing instruments are not reconstructed in this batch.

  • Information and investigation powers

    Authority to request information, inspect or investigate within statutory powers, together with corresponding duties and protections.

  • Remedial directions and compliance consequences

    Measures capable of stopping or correcting prohibited conduct and the operational implications for existing agreements or transactions.

  • Penalties and liability

    Statutory penalties and responsibility for violations, subject to the precise offence, responsible person, procedure and current text.

  • Interaction with sector regulation

    Competition analysis may sit alongside licensing, tariff, network-access or public-service regulation.

When You Would Use This

Forming a bidding consortium

Assess whether collaboration is objectively needed, how scope is divided, which parties could bid independently and how competitively sensitive information is controlled.

Designing tender communications

Establish clean-team, confidentiality and information protocols to reduce unlawful coordination risk among bidders, subcontractors or common advisers.

Negotiating exclusivity

Evaluate duration, scope, market power, foreclosure effects and objective project justification rather than treating exclusivity as automatically prohibited.

Structuring a long-term PPA, offtake or supply agreement

Review volume commitments, take-or-pay features, tying, restrictions and market effects within the actual sector and regulatory structure.

Operating essential or network infrastructure

Test access, discrimination, pricing and refusal-to-deal issues where the operator may possess substantial market power, without presuming dominance.

Acquiring a project company or infrastructure asset

Determine whether the transaction constitutes an economic concentration and verify any applicable filing, approval or timing requirement before completion.

Creating a joint venture

Separate permissible integration from coordination that extends beyond the venture’s necessity or suppresses competition between parents.

Responding to an information request

Preserve records, identify statutory authority and deadlines, coordinate factual/economic responses and separately consider confidentiality or privilege.

Reviewing a dominant supplier’s terms

Examine discrimination, bundling, exclusivity, pricing and access conduct against the statutory abuse framework and market evidence.

Conducting compliance diligence

Identify competition-sensitive clauses, historic communications, concentration issues and remediation needs in project or M&A diligence.

InfraLex Relevance

The Law gives InfraLex a disciplined competition lens for infrastructure procurement, consortiums, long-term commercial arrangements, network access and asset acquisitions. Its value lies in identifying when competition analysis is required and which statutory architecture governs—not in declaring standard project clauses compliant. PPP, procurement and company transactions are use contexts only; they do not justify additional topic coverage.

Legal Framework Position

  • CompetitionPrimary / Framework Instrument

Instrument Overview

Official Citation
Law No. 19 of 2006
Instrument Type
Law / Act
Source Language
Arabic
Enactment Date
29 June 2006
Last Verified
4 September 2026