Pursuant to Article 37.2 of the Regulations and Procedural Rules of the Court, coming into effect 1 March 2022, the Qatar International Court has issued a new Practice Direction (No. 1/2022) on Small Claims, substantially shortening the time frame from the issue of a case to reaching a judgment.
The PD establishes a standard procedure for dealing with small claims (any case, whether brought by or against an individual or company or other entity, with a monetary value of up to and including QAR 100,000) without limiting the Court’s general power to issue case management directions, including decisions to allocate claims which exceed the QAR 100,000 amount to the small claims track in appropriate cases.
The Claimant will now have seven days from the date of issue to serve the Claim Form and any supporting documentation on the Defendant, while the time frame for the Defendant’s response has been reduced to 14 days. There are currently no filing fees, and cases are typically determined on the written materials or virtually via a remote hearing.
