A new regulatory amendment has been recently introduced to the Investment Law No. 72/2017 and its executive regulations for the purpose of monitoring foreign investments in Egypt. Very recently, Law No. 141/2019 and decrees Nos. 2731/2019 and 2732/2019 were issued, amending Law No. 72/2017 promulgating the Investment Law and its executive regulations (“New Regulatory Amendment”).

Under this New Regulatory Amendment any corporate entity established in Egypt or investment project carried out in Egypt involving a minimum of 10% foreign shareholding for non-listed companies or 2.5% for listed companies (excluding any company operating locally by virtue of a concession agreement) is now required to submit disclosure/reporting forms to GAFI on a quarterly and annual basis or in the event that certain articles of a company’s statutes are amended. Three different types of disclosure/reporting forms are now introduced under the New Regulatory Amendment.

Any of the forms are to be filled out by the company, and to be submitted on the following link: https://gafi.gov.eg/English/eservices/FDI, or a hard copy to be delivered to the investors’ services center at GAFI.

The New Regulatory Amendment came into force on November 7, 2019, and should have been applicable only starting December 2019. However, as per GAFI’s website, the deadline for submitting the quarter reporting form for Q3 of 2019 (ending on September 30, 2019) was on November 15, 2019.

Failure to comply with the foregoing requirement shall subject the person in charge of the actual management of the company to a fine not exceeding EGP 50,000. We have also been made aware that a delay in complying with the reporting requirement may delay/halt the ratification of corporate resolutions (general assembly minutes, board resolution minutes, etc.).