Amendment to Anti-fraud Law Proposed

ABU DHABI - The Commercial Control Department of the UAE Ministry of Economy has prepared a draft for a law to enforce strong punishments to those found guilty of perpetuating commercial fraud in the country, a top government official said on Wednesday.

By T. Ramavarman

Published: Thu 17 Dec 2009, 11:32 PM

Last updated: Thu 2 Apr 2015, 3:48 AM

The Ministry has submitted the draft law to the government and it is under consideration of the Committee of Ministers, Department Director Abdullah Ahmad Al Hussain told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of a conference.

He said the new law will be introduced as an amendment to the existing law which is known as the “Federal law No. (4) of 1979 on Combating fraudulence and Cheating in Trading Dealings”.

The draft prescribes heavy fines against perpetrators of commercial fraud and will expand the coverage of the existing law to newer areas, apart from fine tuning the definitions of commercial fraud to eliminate ambivalence, Al Hussain said. All the items traded in the country will be covered under the new law.

This is the first time that the Federal Law on commercial fraud enforced in 1979 is being amended. Each emirate can now frame more rules to suit to their local requirements in preventing such frauds, in accordance with the broader spirit of the new Federal Law, he said.

According to him, the existing law provides for the imprisonment of its violators. “So the new draft has not prescribed enhancement of the jail term, and we leave it to the courts to decide,” Al Hussain said.

“The jail shall be for a term not exceeding 3 years and the fine not less than Dh 4000 and not exceeding 20,000, or one of the two penalties if the crime was committed or began by using standards, measurements, weights, seals or other forged or different examination tools,’’ according to the copy of the existing law published in the Web site of the Ministry.

However, an official of the Brand owners’ Protection Group, a non-government organisation licenced by Dubai’s Department of Economic Development, said not many violators are known to be getting long periods of imprisonment.

“We plead to the authorities that those indulging in commercial frauds should be given at least one year of imprisonment so that they will be deterred from repeating the crime,” the BPG Chairman Omar Shteiwi said.

ramavarman@khaleejtimes.ae