This week in legal AI — Gulf states

5 updates on the record, 2023-12-21 to 2026-10-07.

• Rule · QICDRC · 2026-01-06
  Practice Direction No. 1 of 2026 and Practice Guidance on the Use of Artificial Intelligence
  A practice direction and accompanying practice guidance issued by the Qatar International Court and Dispute Resolution Centre on 6 January 2026 on the use of AI in proceedings before the Qatar Financial Centre courts. Parties and representatives must verify AI-assisted content, may be required to disclose AI use, and remain responsible for fabricated or inaccurate material.
  Primary source: QICDRC — Original
• Incident · Gulf states · 2025-11-12
  Sheppard v Jillion LLC [2025] QIC (E) 3 (CTFIC0033/2025)
  In this Qatar Financial Centre Civil and Commercial Court judgment, President Lord Thomas found an anonymised Dubai-based lawyer in contempt for citing two fake QFC cases sourced from Google and persisting after challenge, breaching Article 35.2. The court imposed no penal sanction, treating the apology and publication of the judgment as sufficient.
  Primary source: Jonathan David Sheppard v Jillion LLC [2025] QIC (E) 3 (12 Nov 2025) — official sealed judgment PDF, order and paragraphs 21–27
• Rule · iGA (Bahrain) · 2025-05-20
  General Policy for the Use of Artificial Intelligence, Version 1.0
  First release of the policy. Bahrain's whole-of-government AI policy, issued by the Information and eGovernment Authority on 20 May 2025. It applies to all government entities and sets four pillars: legal compliance, adoption and use, awareness and education, and cooperation. It contains no judiciary-, court- or legal-services-specific provision.
  Primary source: iGA (Bahrain) — 1.0
• Rule · UAE AI Office · 2024-07-30
  The UAE Charter for the Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence
  Published by the UAE AI Office. A non-binding national charter published on 30 July 2024 setting twelve ethical principles for developing and using AI in the UAE, including safety, bias mitigation, data privacy, transparency, human oversight, governance and accountability, and compliance with local law and international treaties. It is the UAE's principal horizontal AI instrument in the absence of an AI statute.
  Primary source: UAE AI Office — Original
• Rule · DIFC Courts · 2023-12-21
  Practical Guidance Note No. 2 of 2023: large language models and generative AI in DIFC Courts proceedings
  First issue. Guidance issued by the DIFC Courts on 21 December 2023 for parties and practitioners using large language models and generative AI in proceedings. It sets out four principles — transparency, accuracy and reliability, professional and legal obligations, and avoiding over-reliance — and requires parties to declare AI-generated content at the earliest possible opportunity.
  Primary source: DIFC Courts — Original

Source: SafeLegalAI (safelegalai.com), published by SafeLegalAI. Data CC BY 4.0. Scope: Gulf states. As of 2026-10-07. Records report public court, regulator and vendor documents and are not legal advice; names and marks belong to their owners; provided without warranty. Records: safelegalai.com/tracker/gulf · Feed: RSS