Faisal Ali Addabi

Summary of the Problem: It is known that official attestation of originals of foreign registration and authorization documents, such as foreign commercial registration documents, authorization documents and formal powers of attorney, is required by law in all countries worldwide. Taking official attestation procedures means signing and stamping the originals of foreign registration and authorization documents by the relevant embassies and ministries of foreign affairs, taking into account that based on the official attestation procedures, the embassies and ministries of foreign affairs testify only as to the correctness of stamps and signatures on the originals of foreign registration and authorization documents and do not testify at all as to the correctness of their content or subject matter.
For example: If an agent wants to use an original of formal power of attorney in Qatar and the said power of attorney has been issued from Sudan, then, the aforesaid original of power of attorney shall be officially attested by the Sudanese Embassy in Qatar and then by the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs after paying the applicable attestation fees.
Purpose of official attestation of originals of foreign registration and authorization documents is to prohibit commission of fraud and forgery crimes.
Official attestation of the originals of foreign registration and authorization documents may be time-consuming and costly in case of availability of foreign embassies in the relevant countries. If foreign embassies are closed due to any diplomatic boycott, then, official attestation procedures may be adjourned for an unlimited period. If there no embassy in the relevant country, the official attestation procedures may not be taken at all, thus, making any commercial or financial transactions may become impossible! The most important local and international question is: How can we provide a practical solution to this critical procedural problem?
Summary of the Solution: In certain cases, the official attestation of the originals of foreign registration and authorization documents can be practically ignored and replaced by sending commercial or financial messages, containing reference to the registration and authorization information, by a local bank to a foreign bank via the SWIFT automatic system, accordingly, local banks and foreign banks, which represent dealers and clients, can exchange undeniable unified messages relating to the requested commercial or financial transactions and referring to their registration and authorization information, such as purchase order, sell order, transaction execution confirmation, settlement order, payment order and delivery order for the purpose of initiating and executing commercial or financial transactions between international banks. Practically speaking, SWIFT network guarantees attestation of all transactions made through it and no bank can be able to deny the existence of any transaction made through the SWIFT network taking into consideration that banks throughout the world usually deal with their clients based on KYC rules (Know your client policy). We can say that, nowadays , the international trade in its entirety depends on the SWIFT network, for example, if an agent , who resides in country (A) , has a formal power of attorney for withdrawing money from the principle’s account in country (A), the principle, who resides in country (B), can simply request his bank in his country to send a message to the bank in country (A) and request it to withdraw the money from his account in country (A) and deliver it to the agent , thus , delivery of the money to the agent in country (A) can be made without the need for using and attesting the power of attorney by the relevant embassy and ministry of foreign affairs.
It is worth mentioning that the term “SWIFT” stands for : The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication , SWIFT is a Belgian cooperative society which links more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries and plays the main role in developing the international trade , its main function is to provide secure messaging services between international banks in order to facilitate , accelerate and protect initiation and execution of international commercial or financial transactions and payments between banks throughout the world .

In the end, reality says frankly: under all circumstances, it is better for you to get rid of the official headache which may afflict your heads if you try to take the lengthy and costly official procedures for attesting the originals of foreign registration and authorization documents, forget about this traditional and old system , choose the modern, fast and cheap SWIFT system and say to each other after finalizing your transactions: fast transfer in the air is better than any medicine or healthcare!!