Qatar

Law No 2 of 2017 “Promulgating the Civil and Commercial Arbitration Law” (the Arbitration Law) was issued on 16 February 2017 and published in the Official Gazette on 13 March 2017 that regulates the conduct of arbitration in Qatar. Thus updated Arbitration Law is largely based on the 2006 UNCITRAL Model Law. Qatar International Center for Conciliation and Arbitration is under the auspices of Qatar Chamber of Commerce.
It is worth mentioning that Qatar is a signatory to Riadh Convention, Arab League Convention, the Gulf Convention and ICSID and to the New York Convention, without any reservations.
With respect to the administrative contracts, that contain an arbitration agreement, the approval of the Prime Minister is required. Public sector entities are prohibited from settling the disputes arising between them through arbitration. In addition, the Arbitration Law in Article 7.2 stipulates that arbitration is not permitted in matters in which conciliation is not allowed, however, the matters that are not allowed to be settled by conciliation are not clarified. In general, personal or family disputes as well as criminal matters can not be settled by arbitration.
According to Article 2.2 of the above mentioned Arbitration Law, “agreement to arbitration in administrative contract disputes shall be subject to the approval of the Prime Minister”, however, “public juridical persons may not, in any case, refer to Arbitration to settle any disputes arising between them.” Awards can only be challenged by request to annulment and pursuant to Article 33 the main grounds of setting aside the arbitral awards are incapacity of the parties, procedural errors or public-policy related issues. The awards can not be appealed on the merits.
Specifically, Article 11 refers to immunity of arbitrators that is not found in UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. Arbitrators are immune from liability unless they have acted in bad faith.
The winning party must seek an exequatur in respect of the award before proceeding to enforcement against the losing party and according to Article 34 of the Qatari Arbitration Law, the award has a res judicata effect and “[it] shall be enforceable, in accordance with the provisions of this Law, regardless of the country in which the award was issued.”
It is worth mentioning that Law No 2 of 2017 issuing the Arbitration Law in Civil and Commercial Matters provides parties with the option to agree on the “Competent Court” of the arbitration in case the seat of arbitration is in Qatar. The Competent Court may perform various functions including introduction of the interim measures, enforcement of awards and consideration of appeals.
Subject to the agreement between the Parties, where the Court has been chosen as the Competent Court of the arbitration, it has jurisdiction over matters relating to:

appointment and removal of arbitrators
determining challenges to jurisdiction
assisting with the taking of evidence
correcting awards
hearing appeals against awards
determining challenges in relation to enforcement decisions.

In addition, the Enforcement Judge of the Court will consider applications relating to interim measures and their enforcement as well as execution of arbitral awards, being the supervisory court of the seat, having jurisdiction over the arbitral proceedings, taking place in Qatar, including hearing any challenges to the validity of the arbitral awards.