Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Ministry of Commerce said in a press statement that it had referred 585 cases of commercial cover-up (tasattur) to the Public Prosecution since the beginning of the year 2021 until the end of August.

During the same period, inspection teams from the ministry carried out more than 21,000 raids of commercial establishments and markets in various regions of the Kingdom in their bid to monitor and detect any violations of the Anti-Commercial Cover-Up law.

The ministry defined that commercial concealment is an act of facilitating a non-Saudi resident by a Saudi or a foreign investor to work for his own personal benefit in any one of the commercial activities prohibited for him, and this is by using the name, license, commercial register, or any other means by a Saudi or a foreign investor.

The Anti-Commercial Cover-Up law stipulated imprisonment for a period of up to five years, or a fine of up to SR5,000,000, or of both for the violator. The fine will be multiplied by the number of violations.

The penalty decision will be publicized at the expense of the violator, in addition to taking other punitive measures such as canceling the commercial registration and the license, and liquidating the business activity, apart from imposing a ban on practicing the same activity for a maximum period of five years.