Disputes and Arbitration

Under the right granted to us by the Saudi Code of Law Practice, we have worked since our first year on accumulated applications in the Saudi market. This enhanced our legal skills in the field of litigation services, and enabled us to successfully manage and settle many disputes. Therefore, we at Alshangiti & Associates Law Firm aim to employ our experience to support our clients by litigating before courts, quasi-judicial bodies, arbitration centers and bodies.

Litigation before the Saudi judiciary requires the lawyer to be able to master both the formal and substantive aspects due to its exceptional nature. The major documents that were formulated, such as the judiciary law and system, carry rapid changes in this era due to the nature of the document’s texts. These texts are often conducted in restructuring the classification of cases and courts by splitting or merging, or forming new courts at all levels of first instance, appeal, and supreme courts. There are other complementary documents, namely principles, decisions, and rules issued by various judicial authorities, which may not be accessible to a non-specialist.

One of the most common misconceptions, in understanding this role, is that litigation is assigned to a non-local service provider, who does not have the proper criteria for the selection, or to an unlicensed local one who is unfamiliar with the legislative and structural variables from outside or inside the commercial facility. Because there are many issues that may be extremely complicated from the point of view of who is unaware to the nature of the dispute, while the fact on the ground refers that processing such issues by us as a specialized service provider is different. Conversely, the approach may be formulated by simplifying what is complex and thorny. Therefore, we stress that the assignment decision is extremely important, and must be taken in the form of wise governance.

Throughout our well-informed career in managing disputes and litigation processes, which we have developed as a printed knowledge product under the name of (Set of Rulings), and it includes all the cases in which we argue. It becomes, therefore. easy for any member of our team to access them as a reference, because each ruling, by its nature, includes the statement of claim and its written details. For example, the exchange of responses between both parties to the litigation in the same case, memorandums of defense, the legal grounds for the case and its executive regulations, the judges' reasoning on which the ruling was based, and statements of appeal, to name but a few. Accordingly, we believe that we are more reliable than other sources because we created such resources with our own hands.

After more than 20 years of experience as a provider of dispute management services in the business sector, we have drawn a great similarity to the most local courts interrelated to this sector. Starting with the commercial, administrative, labor, human rights courts, passing through the administrative committees with the judicial jurisdiction, where the institutions operating in the sector may have to appear before them to protect or defend their activities, and reaching others.

Furthermore, our efforts are not limited to managing the dispute before the court, but they include the alignment with the requirements of maintaining the relationship between the facility and its clients whenever possible by the professional mediation outside the court or by implementing or proposing settlements and analyzing their ease. Also, in the event that the dispute is settled by arbitration, we represent the facility, whether it was the claimant or the defendant, in accordance with the terms of the agreed arbitral award or through the compromises.

We pay more attention to the quality of the defense strategy in its integrative form, as we carefully draw up and implement such then transfer it to our client realistically. We participate with the client in managing the case through the periodic reports on the development of the situation, as well as passing regulations, memoranda and requests before they are finally approved by the court, and we strive to keep the client's interest in their right with utmost effort at all stages of the case.

Commercial Cases

Analysis of the Saudi litigation market indicates that commercial cases occupy the largest percentage of cases pending in Saudi courts, which are subject to the system of commercial laws, and cannot be accepted without a lawyer in accordance with the commercial court system, with exceptions.

Civil Cases

The main court, in the Saudi judicial structure, is the General Court, where it has the jurisdiction over many issues and classifications that called the (civil) cases. It also has the jurisdiction over the cases of a commercial nature, depending on the amount of the claim or the type of case. However, the issue of defining the jurisdiction of each court for the business sector in this broad description to the general jurisdiction shall be implemented by a legal expert who will take the proper decision early to reduce the period of the case.

Labor Cases

The labor and the human resources issue is one of the most important components of the work in the business sector. Full support should be provided to the facility's position in this matter before the judiciary in coordination between the lawyer and the concerned departments in the company. In spite of its simplicity, taking the risk in managing such kind of cases may lead to unavoidable financial losses. This is in the light of the statistics of the business sector, which indicate that the weakness of the management team is the most prominent obstacle in business sector.

Construction Cases

The business sector spends huge sums of money on construction and contracting work contracts. Contract applications may be subject to differences in views and entitlement in the overlapping legal relationship between the owner, the main contractor, the subcontractor, if any, or the consulting designer. The basis of responsibility must be examined within the framework of its elements (error, damage, and causal relationship), and through jurisprudential theories of warranty related to this type of issues.

Customs Cases

The work of the facilities operating in the industrial sector cannot be separated from the field of the imports and what hinder them of legal problems. As a result, the legislative environment provided the competent committees to examine the disputes arising from them. The legal service provider therefore should be professional to apply the Arabian Gulf uniform law to this type of cases in order to achieve the best results for the legal position of the industrial facility in accordance with the applicable provisions of customs laws and procedures.

Administrative Cases

The administrative courts (the Board of Grievances) are necessary for the business sector, due to the fact that they are issuing the judgments for cancellation and compensation. The function of these courts is, simply when the governmental authorities do not respond to a right granted by a law in licenses or activities, they can be challenged before the Administrative Court. The same is regulated by the law when it comes to decisions of administrative committees that have the judicial jurisdiction, which can also be challenged before this type of ours. In the context of tender work, we can find that some of the contracts concluded by the business facilities and the government authorities to supply services, products, or goods, which may result in failure to honor the financial obligations, delay or suspension thereof without legal basis. Hence the need arises to take a legal action defined by the law. Furthermore, some entities might construe the contract in a way that violates its requirements, affecting the balance of the contract or imposing illegal fines, and these are the situations that need protection.

Economic Cases

Business laws may result in the criminal offenses that are stipulated in the penalty sections of each law. Even though the need for this representation does not fall within our legal specialization in the business sector, because it is a branch of practical criminal law, we will deal with them by virtue of their proximity to the sector. Our services for this type of cases starts from appearing on behalf of the facility before the competent executive authority and participated in its report, passing through the representation of the facility or its owners before the Public Prosecution, and ending with pleading before the competent criminal court or the criminal circuits in the administrative judiciary until the last judicial level.

Competition Cases

Competitive legal responsibility in its summary revolves around competition law, which sets out prohibitions for enterprises in this context. We believe that the extent of this law relates to market shares or government tenders, and all of this requires the role of legal leadership to deal with these main elements. We point out that there is an essential and sensitive previous stage, which is analyzing the impact of withholding information during the investigation stages carried out by the General Authority for Competition, and it must be managed and dealt with in accordance with the law.

In this regard, we are unique in that we argued the first competition case filed in Saudi Arabia, which was directed against establishments in a specific activity. Then we continued to represent establishments in other sectors before the Committee for Adjudication of Violations of the Competition Law and then the Administrative Court at all levels. This type of issue is considered very delicate and exceptional before the business sector.

Collection of Funds

The design of our services focused on issues that are simple, clear, and have strong arguments. Such as the presence of a balance match, acknowledgment of the claim amount, or receipt of goods conforming to specifications, to name but a few. These cases, according to specific aspects, we classify as collection files even though they have a judicial process. This is because we seek to transact them at a fair value commensurate with the effort of the case to obtain a satisfactory level of legal expenditure. In this section, we are also working to enable the facility to rearrange the legal documents to achieve the classification of its judicial claims as collection cases. So, naturally, this service covers requests for the enforcement of judgments and the execution of commercial papers before the Execution Court.

International Cases

On the basis that the world is becoming smaller and the recent movement of goods, the business sector faces the challenges regarding prosecution in the external environments. This is due to the failure of payment of the amounts due, due to differences in work centers and laws, in addition to the application of the rules of private international law and commercial norms as per the state and its bilateral agreements with Saudi Arabia under the umbrella of the World Trade Organization.

It is important to make it clear that we are not pleading before any court outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through our team. However, we provide the services regarding the selection of the appropriate lawyers to handle such cases in the countries that import most from Saudi facilities, through our alliances with our lawyer friends with whom we have concluded memoranda of cooperation in the target countries. Even though, and at the same time, we define the scope of their work, and follow up their work according to the professional practice with a supervisory role in all phases of work. This is to save the efforts of the administrative team in the business facility, save their time, and alleviate the suffering related to the search for, testing, negotiating, and following up the suitable lawyers in the geographical scope of the problem.

Arbitration

Arbitration is the alternative path to the courts. It is distinguished by the quality of the work of those who consider the claim and the period of the claim.

Companies need the opinion to support this direction, especially if it is included in the contract, which is called 'the arbitration clause' and 'compromise'. In which the suitable arbitrator to settle the dispute is to be nominated, then the facility is to be represented before the arbitral tribunal whether it was a claimant or defendant. Arbitration requires two teams to be appointed, the first one is the arbitrators, who work independently like judges, and the second one is the lawyer who will plead before the arbitral tribunal for the facility.

To deal with this alternative path, it is not only sufficient to have the knowledge with it and its feasibility, but it also needs further and market know-how verification of this structure so that to be solid and achieve the purpose to its basic idea. We, therefore, provide full support in this track, with both its candidacy and representational aspects