A Practioner Guide To The Unfair Competition Law In Jordan

• Author: Haitham A. Haloush
• Position: Department of Accounting and Commercial Law, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13115, Jordan
• Pages: 1-7

The Open Law Journal, 2009, 2, 1-7 1

1874-950X/09 2009 Bentham Open

Open Access

A Practioner Guide To The Unfair Competition Law In Jordan

Haitham A. Haloush*

Department of Accounting and Commercial Law, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, The Hashemite University,

Zarqa 13115, Jordan

Abstract: Until the year 2000, there was no specific statute enacted in Jordan that regulates unfair competition. In the

year 2000, the Jordanian Unfair Competition Law No. 15 of 2000 was enacted. The Law deals with the issue of unfair

competition in a very generic way. In addition to the Jordanian Unfair Competition Law, the principal statutory source of

protection is implemented through the general rules and principles of civil law, particularly, tort law and injurious acts.

Although the Jordanian Unfair Competition Law purports to implement a general legal regime on unfair competition, it

includes very little in terms of substantive or procedural protection of unfair competition. Presently, the Jordanian legal

system provides only very limited protection which is not adequate to accommodate unfair competition cases. Therefore,

statutory changes are needed.

1.1. INTRODUCTION

Little is known about Arab and Islamic law, including

Jordanian law. It is rather a realistic approach that business-

men should know about unfair competition law of other

countries and that they know about effectiveness, fairness,

speed and cost of judicial procedures abroad (Carroll 2001).

As far as the author is aware, the issue of unfair competition

in Arab countries, including Jordan, has not been researched

before from technical and legal standpoints since unfair

competition is a newly developed area. This Article repre-

sents a first attempt to examine the issues arising in this dif-

ficult and important subject. Therefore, this article will ex-

amine the suitability of the Jordanian legal system in provid-

ing sufficient protection of unfair competition. The article

concludes that there are serious obstacles in terms of sub-

stantive and procedural protection of unfair competition in

Jordan and provides some recommendations in this regard.

In order to examine this issue, this article is divided into

two sections. First, the scope of application of unfair compe-

tition under the Jordanian law. Second, the legal Protection

of unfair competition in Jordan. Finally, the conclusion of

the article will relate the finding to each other in a coherent

way and suggests practical solutions to some pitfalls of the

current law.

Merchants are indoctrinated for competition which is

essential and perhaps inevitable in all commercial fields in

order to attract customers. However, it has been argued that

although every competitor who wins customers from another

justifiably damages the business of the losing competitor,

that damage is merely damnum absque injuria. (Knight

1978) In other words, the justified diminution, injury, even

*Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Accounting

and Commercial Law, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences,

The Hashemite Univ ersity, Zarqa 13115, Jordan; Tel: + (5) 390-333 3-4459;

Mobile: + 0795162296; Fax: + (5) 390-3344;

E-mail: h_haloush@hotmail.com; haithamhaloush@hotmail.com

the destruction, of the business of a competitor is not an in-

jury, in the legal sense, and will warrant no relief, because it

is the effect of the exercise of an unquestioned right (callman

1994) Thus, legal framework that allows fair competition to

develop and flourish is needed for both traders and

customers (Muhriz 1994). Until the year 2000, there was no

specific statute enacted in Jordan that regulates unfair com-

petition. In the year 2000, the Jordanian Unfair Competition

Law No. 15 of 2000 (hereinafter referred to as (“JUCL”) was

enacted. (The Jordanian Unfair Competition Law No. 15 of

the year 2000. The law has been published in the Jordanian

Official Gazette No. 4423 dated 2/4/2000 at p.1316). Al-

though the JUCL purports to implement a general legal re-

gime on unfair competition, it includes very little in terms of

substantive or procedural protection of unfair competition.

The Law deals with the issue of unfair competition in a very

generic way. There is an article discusses broadly the actions

constituting unfair competition. Another article describes

generally litigation procedures. The remaining few articles

discusses trade secrets and intellectual property licensing in a

rather generic way. The law includes only 8 articles. In addi-

tion to the JUCL, the principal statutory source of protection

is implemented through the general rules and principles of

civil law, part icularly, tort law and injurious acts.

The case law, in this area, is rather non-existent. This

reflects, to a large extent, the noticeable absence of litigation

in Jordan with regards to unfair competition. For example,

trademarks infringement cases which have been dealt with

specifically under the Jordanian trademarks Law No. 33 of

the year 1999, can be categorized under unfair competition.

For some unknown reasons, however, disputants in Jordan

are prone to resort to specific laws that address the issue at

hand, i.e., trademarks law, rather than unfair competition

law. This might be attributed to the educational and cultural

gap in the field of unfair competition. In a leading case in

trademarks infringement in Jordan, the claimant, a foreign

company, filed a lawsuit against another local company,

which was engaged in the manufacturing of products which