The Capital Markets Court Is Being Retired: What Decree-Law 91/2026 Means for Issuers, Brokers and Investors

Since 2010, every civil dispute arising from Kuwait's Capital Markets Authority Law has had one address: the Capital Markets Court created by Articles 108 and following of Law No. 7 of 2010. Decree-Law No. 91 of 2026, published in Kuwait Al-Youm Issue 1809 on 20 September 2026, repeals those articles and hands the caseload to the new Economic Circuits. The change bites on 1 October 2027, the same day the Economic Circuits themselves open for business.

Why this matters: if you are a listed company, a licensed person, a fund manager or an investor, the forum where you sue and are sued is changing, and so is the procedure that comes with it. Forum changes reward the parties who plan for them early and punish the ones who discover them at the registry counter.

What exactly changes

Three things. First, the competent court for civil, commercial and administrative disputes under the CMA Law becomes the Economic Circuits established by Decree-Law No. 88 of 2026, at first instance, appeal and cassation. Second, criminal offences under the CMA Law, market abuse and unlicensed activity among them, leave the specialist track altogether and go to the ordinary criminal courts under the general rules of the Criminal Procedure Law. Third, the competent minister for the CMA is no longer named in the statute as the Minister of Commerce and Industry; it is whichever minister the Cabinet designates, which today, under Decree 130/2026, is the Minister of State for Economic Affairs and Investment. The drafters say this future-proofs the law against further changes of portfolio.

The timetable and the transition

Decree-Law 91/2026 enters into force together with the Economic Circuits law on 1 October 2027. Until then, nothing moves: the Capital Markets Court keeps registering and hearing cases as before. On the changeover date, cases and appeals already registered with the Capital Markets Court stay with it until they are finally decided, so the court will wind down gradually as its docket clears, while every new filing goes to the Economic Circuits. There is no re-filing and no transfer of live cases.

Practical differences to plan for

The Economic Circuits come with their own machinery, and securities disputes will inherit it: a mandatory conciliation step before the case reaches a judge, electronic litigation from filing to enforcement, an enforcement judge with the power to freeze accounts and securities, seize assets and impose travel bans on debtors suspected of hiding money, and a fee schedule that the Ministry of Justice will set in the executive regulation. For criminal matters the shift is bigger than it looks: prosecutions will follow the ordinary criminal route, with its own investigation, referral and appeal chain, rather than the specialised circuits practitioners have grown used to.

What does not change

The CMA itself is untouched. Licensing, supervision, disciplinary boards and the internal grievance routes all continue as they are; only the judicial forum moves. The substantive obligations of Law 7/2010, disclosure, licensing, takeover rules and the rest, are also unchanged. And for the next year the Capital Markets Court remains the right and only address for CMA disputes.

A short playbook

Map your live and expected disputes against the 1 October 2027 line: a claim filed on 30 September 2027 will run its full course before the Capital Markets Court, while one filed a week later starts in the Economic Circuits with a compulsory conciliation step, and that timing choice may be worth making deliberately. Update dispute-resolution clauses and internal escalation maps that name the Capital Markets Court. Brief compliance and legal teams that criminal exposure under the CMA Law will run through the ordinary criminal courts. And watch for the Ministry of Justice executive regulation under Decree-Law 88/2026, which will set the fees and the conciliation procedure that will shape day-one strategy.

WEFAQ's view: consolidation into the Economic Circuits is coherent: one commercial judiciary for company, banking, competition and now securities disputes, with stronger enforcement tools than the Capital Markets Court ever had. The cost is a year of transition planning, and the firms that treat 1 October 2027 as a strategic date rather than an administrative one will come out ahead.

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Source: Decree-Law No. 91 of 2026 Amending Certain Provisions of Law No. 7 of 2010, Kuwait Al-Youm Official Gazette, Issue 1809, 20 September 2026; Decree-Law No. 88 of 2026 Establishing the Economic Circuits.

This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice specific to your circumstances, please contact WEFAQ Law Firm.