As Part of the Ministry's Campaign to Combat Concealment in the Commercial Sectors in the Kingdom
MCI campaign to pursue and detect the commercial concealers has revealed a commercial concealment case in a Trading Company for Industrial & Plastic Primary Materials in Riyadh. MCI inspectors detected a number of documents and physical evidences proving the involvement of two brothers of Arab nationality in running the said company, aided by Gulf citizen concealers against certain amounts of money. The case was referred to the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution to complete the investigation procedures, then to be referred to the Bureau of Grievances for taking the final judgment.
MCI inspectors monitored the two expatriates managing the said company and running all the activities, while the two Gulf citizens do not reside in the Kingdom, and they do not have an idea or details about what is going on in such company, and even they do not show up in the company for a long time. Upon inspecting the site, a number of documents, official papers and contracts signed by the expatriates had been seized. This would prove their full responsibility of managing the company under commercial concealment.
The details go back when the Ministry received a tip from a citizen suspecting the existence of a commercial concealment case in the above mentioned company. After taking the necessary investigation, it turned out that the two expatriates are running that facility without any supervision or follow-up of the two GCC nationals, despite the fact that the company is being registered under their own name.
MCI would like to warn all GCC nationals, who are investing in the Kingdom, not to violate the Anti-Commercial Concealment Law in K.S.A., indicating that the decision allowing GCC citizens to exercise economic activity requires that the GCC citizen should be responsible directly of the management of the licensed activity. The Ministry aims to clear off the phenomenon of commercial concealment, and to create a trading environment free of irregularities and violations, and to enable all citizens of practicing business safely.
This comes at a time when MCI has been implementing inspection campaigns to combat the commercial concealment in various regions of the Kingdom, where the Ministry had detected and revealed many violations. All necessary procedures had been taken in that regards, which may reach to two years' imprisonment, a fine of SR one million for each violator, deporting the non-Saudis from the Kingdom, ceasing & liquidating the commercial activity and writing off the commercial registration, as well as the prevention of practicing the same business for up to five years, in addition to the defamation of the violators in the local newspapers periodically at their own expense.
MCI calls on all citizens to cooperate and report all cases of commercial concealment, if the evidence is available, through the toll free number 1900 or through the application of a Commercial Notification. Notably, MCI is granting a financial reward to the collaborator in the commercial concealment cases that may reach up to 30% of the value of the fines sentenced after collection.