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A case relating to allegations of corruption at Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) opened at Muscat Primary Court in mid-November, and was adjourned until early December. On trial are PDO tenders committee head Juma Al-Hinai, and two officials – managing director Parambathekandi Mohamed Ali and a finance department employee – at a prominent construction company named widely in the Omani press as Muscat Securities Market-listed Galfar Engineering & Contracting. Al-Hinai is accused by the public prosecutor of receiving OR200,000 ($519,413) from Galfar, which was allegedly seeking to extend the term of a PDO contract it had won in 2011.

It emerged in September that Qatari art dealer Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed must pay London-based SJ Berwin £261,279 in unpaid fees for advice given when his assets were frozen following a 2012 court case. Sheikh Saud was sued in the UK High Court in November 2012 by a group of dealers who said he had dishonoured a pledge to pay $19.7m for a coin collection sold at a New York auction in January 2012 (GSN 936/8, 935/10). Sheikh Saud was likened by the dealers’ QC, Jeffrey Gruder of Essex Court Chambers, to an “inveterate gambler” who could not stop himself spending millions on objects of his desire before walking away from his obligations.

Following the May 2013 news that Saudi cleric Sheikh Saad Bin Nasser Al-Shathri was suing The Guardian newspaper in the High Court for unlimited damages for suggestions in a July 2011 article that he was an “extremist” sympathetic to Al-Qaeda, the paper on 18 October issued an apology and clarification on what it had written. It noted that both sides had agreed to amicably settle their differences. The dispute arose because of the way Sheikh Saad was portrayed in the article, which suggested that he was opposed to King Abdullah’s reforms, that he was a hardliner, and that he was not in agreement with the king on the mixing of genders at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (GSN 866/8).

Al-Khobar-based Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi and Brothers (AHAB) in October dropped a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles in March 2011 (GSN 898/12) against former employee Glenn Stewart. AHAB had alleged that Stewart was a key player in a fraud that rocked the Al-Gosaibi family businesses in 2009. Stewart was chief executive of Bahrain-based The International Banking Corporation (TIBC), which was owned by AHAB. AHAB claimed Stewart took out nearly $10bn in loans under the bank’s name while knowing that they were being siphoned off by the Saudi businessman and Al-Gosaibi relative Maan Al-Sanea (GSN 899/12), contributing to the bank’s 2009 collapse.

The former governor of the Central Bank of Iraq Sinan Al-Shabibi has called on the Iraqi government to give “more power to the private sector to act as a unifying factor for the country and to create a strong and vibrant economy”. Al-Shabibi was speaking at a conference on governance at the University of Cambridge on 18-19 October, to mark ten years since the US-led invasion of Iraq. Also speaking at the conference were Sadiq Al-Rikabi, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, Dawa Party MP Haider Al-Abadi and Kurdistan Regional Government foreign minister Falah Mustafa Bakir.

The National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah (Rakbank) announced the appointment of Peter England as its new chief executive on 1 September. England will replace Graham Honeybill, who is retiring after 17 years with the bank. He was due to be succeeded by Ian Larkin, but the latter left in June, just a few weeks after arriving, apparently because of a clash of working styles.

Qatar has appointed its first female ambassador. On 31 July, Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani issued emiri decision 89 of 2013, naming Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Bin Ahmed Bin Ali Al-Thani the new “extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador” to Croatia. Last November, Croatia opened an embassy in Qatar, its first in the Gulf. Croatian President Ivo Josipovic visited Doha at the time, with a large delegation of Croatian business leaders, and a focus on expanding economic ties. According to the Croatian press, Zagreb is seeking financial help from the Qatar Investment Authority and Macquarie Group to build an LNG terminal on the island of Krk. Qatargas is expected to supply the LNG in a 25-year deal.

Prince Abdullah Bin Musaid Bin Abdelaziz has bought a 50% stake in English football club Sheffield United. He bought the stake in the club’s holding company, Blades Leisure Ltd, from owner Kevin McCabe, with whom he becomes co-chairman. McCabe said Prince Abdullah “shared our vision for the Blades to join the top tier of English football”. The prince is a former president of Saudi club Al Hilal and is worth some £18bn ($28bn), according to The Telegraph newspaper, although it is not clear how it came to that figure. He said he was determined to see the club achieve its goals and that money would be “spent judiciously”.

The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) has announced the conclusion of its investigation into a major doping scandal at Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (MBR)’s Godolphin stables (GSN 947/6, 945/8), ruling that trainer Mahmood Al-Zarooni was the only person involved. The BHA looked at 22 horses stabled at Godolphin’s Moulton Paddocks yard in Newmarket that were given anabolic steroids while under the care of Zarooni, who was disqualified on 25 April.

The Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) has threatened Qatar’s Al-Arab newspaper with legal action after a 25 August article accused the QMA’s expatriate managers of corruption and nepotism. Qatari newspapers said the QMA sent two letters to Al-Arab after journalist Faisal Al-Marzouqi accused QMA management of – among other things – awarding contracts to family members and firing Qataris to bring in foreigners, and its foreign staff of behaving shamelessly in QMA residences.

It has been just over eight months since Iraq’s 79-year-old President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke and was transferred to Germany for treatment (GSN 939/4). Since then, the presidency has been left unoccupied, its duties carried out by vice-president Khudair Al-Khuzaei, a Dawa Party member and ally of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat in February, Khuzaei said he thought it would be “disloyal” to replace such a well-respected man. “The constitution allows the vice-president to undertake presidential powers under such circumstances,” he said. “I find myself morally and ethically bound to follow the same balanced line, and I do not believe that there is an urgent need to replace Talabani because he has offered Iraq a great deal.”

Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah announced Kuwait’s 33rd cabinet with an emiri decree (209/2013) on 4 August. It is the fifth cabinet since prime minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah was appointed in November 2011. There were changes at several key ministries – interior, defence and finance will all be headed by new ministers (all members of the ruling family), while Mustafa Al-Shamali moves from finance to oil, a portfolio he has been in charge of since Hani Hussein resigned in May. Seven of the government’s 16 members are from the ruling Al-Sabah, compared to six in the outgoing government. Only one minister is a member of parliament (in the past, as many as eight MPs have been included in the government).

Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah has pardoned all those convicted of insulting him. “I’m pleased on the occasion of Ramadan to grant an emiri amnesty to all those convicted of offending the emir, to be effective immediately,” he said in a speech broadcast on state television on 30 July.

The current ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al-Said, comes from the Al-Busaidi dynasty, which was founded in 1750 when Ahmed Al-Busaidi succeeded in expelling the Persian forces from the Omani coast, and proclaimed himself imam. In 1806, his grandson Said Bin Sultan came to power, and gave his name to the current ruling family. The Al-Said is one of the smallest ruling families in the Gulf. Under the Basic Law of 1996, only the descendants of Turki Bin Said (r. 1871-88, Qaboos’ great-great-grandfather) can be named sultan.

Masraf Al Rayan’s board has nine members – seven elected by the General Assembly and two appointed by the main founders, Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company and Qatar’s General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority (GRSIA).