Legal guides for foreigners and investors in Morocco

A practical guide for cargo owners, importers, exporters, insurers and their counsel: which regime governs a cargo claim involving a Moroccan port, who may be liable, which notices must be given and when, how long the claimant has, which limits apply and where the claim can be brought.

A practical guide for creditors, cargo interests, insurers, shipowners and their counsel: when a vessel can be arrested in a Moroccan port, for which maritime claims, before which judge, what the arrest actually does, and how an arrested ship is released against sufficient security.

A guide for buyers and sellers when a property sale agreed in Morocco falls through: what the preliminary agreement is worth, what happens to money already paid, when a court can order completion, and how the property can be protected while the dispute runs.

This guide explains, informationally, the general steps to take after a car accident in Morocco as a foreign driver, from the accident report to compensation.

A pre-purchase guide for anyone considering an apartment, villa or commercial unit sold before completion in Morocco: the checks to run on the developer, the title and the building permit, how to read the reservation and preliminary contracts, the statutory payment limits and guarantees, and what foreign and non-resident buyers should organise before committing funds.

How a business recovers an unpaid commercial debt in Morocco — from evidence and a formal demand through route selection, judgment and enforcement — with the questions foreign creditors and in-house teams face, and the 2026 civil-procedure reform (Law 58.25) in mind.

A national, informational guide to the declaration of cessation of payments in Morocco under Book V of the Commercial Code (Law 73-17): what the statutory concept means, how it differs from ordinary financial difficulty, who must declare and when, the commercial court, the contents and supporting documents, the evidence used to assess the condition, how the court fixes the legal date, and what follows — judicial reorganization or judicial liquidation. It is a child of our guide on the company in difficulty in Morocco.

An informational guide to the treatment of a company in difficulty in Morocco under Book V of the Commercial Code (Law 73-17): prevention, conciliation, safeguard, judicial reorganization and judicial liquidation, cessation of payments as the pivotal concept, the commercial court and its organs, and the position of creditors, contracts and directors — for businesses, directors, creditors and foreign investors.

Buying a Moroccan company rarely fails because of the share transfer itself — it fails on the contracts, licences and approvals around it. This informational guide explains change-of-control clauses and third-party consents in Moroccan M&A: the central rule that a share sale does not, by itself, assign the target's contracts (so a consent is not automatically required merely because the shareholder changes); what a change-of-control clause is and how its effect turns on wording; how a private contract defines control; direct versus indirect change; minority investments; the difference between corporate approvals, statutory share-transfer rules, contractual third-party consents and regulatory approvals; the share-deal versus asset-deal boundary; financing and lender consents; the commercial-lease trap; sector approvals in insurance, banking and listed companies; a due-diligence consent matrix; the consent-request process; and what happens if a required consent is not obtained. It is grounded in the Dahir des obligations et des contrats and Moroccan company law, keeps merger control as a separate stream, and provides no template and no advice on a specific deal.

An earn-out makes part of the acquisition price depend on the target's future performance or on an agreed post-closing event, rather than fixing the whole price at signing. This informational guide explains earn-outs in a Moroccan acquisition: what they are; how Moroccan contract law treats a price component that is only determinable later (the price must be determined or determinable under the Dahir des obligations et des contrats, and its determination cannot simply be left to one party's discretion); why a payment the buyer could defeat at will risks being treated as a purely potestative — and therefore void — obligation under article 112; how metrics such as revenue and EBITDA are chosen and defined; why the buyer's control of the business after closing creates the central drafting tension; how the calculation, objections and any accounting-expert step can work; and where disputes concentrate. It keeps hard boundaries: an earn-out is not deferred fixed consideration, not a completion-accounts adjustment, not an indemnity, and not management pay. It states no tax rates and provides no template.

A Moroccan competition filing can be triggered by an ordinary M&A deal, and getting it wrong is costly. This informational guide explains Morocco's merger-control regime under Law 104-12 (as amended in 2022–2023) and the Conseil de la concurrence's December 2023 guidelines: what counts as a concentration, how control is assessed, the current notification thresholds (worldwide MAD 1.2 billion with a Moroccan link, combined Moroccan MAD 400 million, or a 40% national market share), how turnover is calculated, when a foreign-to-foreign deal is caught, who files and when, the suspensory standstill rule and gun-jumping, the Phase I and Phase II review deadlines, the substantive competition test, remedies, sanctions of up to 5% of turnover, and the practical consequences for signing and closing. It keeps hard boundaries: it is not the share purchase agreement, the acquisition roadmap, the closing-process or the due-diligence guide; it states current law and flags where older online sources cite superseded thresholds; and it provides no template and no advice on a specific deal.

When someone buys a Moroccan company, the number in the agreement is rarely the whole story of the price. This informational guide explains how the purchase price is calculated, protected and — in some deals — adjusted between valuation, signing and completion. It sets out the Moroccan-law starting point (the price must be determined or determinable under the Dahir des obligations et des contrats, and there is no statutory M&A price mechanism), then explains the two families of price mechanism used in international M&A practice: a locked box, which fixes the equity price by reference to accounts at a past date and protects the buyer through leakage cover; and completion accounts, which set an estimated price at closing and true it up afterwards against actual cash, debt and working capital. It explains the enterprise-to-equity bridge, net debt and working-capital adjustments as defined contractual terms, the role of accounting policies and reference accounts, objection and expert-determination mechanics, double-counting risk, hybrid structures, and the balance of buyer and seller interests. It keeps hard boundaries: a price adjustment is not an indemnity and not an earn-out; it does not rebuild the share purchase agreement, the due-diligence method, the closing process or the seller's guarantee; it states no tax rates; and it provides no template.

When a Moroccan share sale is signed on one date and completed on another, the space in between is governed by conditions that must be satisfied before the parties complete. This informational guide explains that signing-to-closing process: what a condition precedent (a condition suspensive) is; how a negotiated contractual condition differs from a mandatory legal or regulatory requirement the parties cannot simply waive; how conditions are satisfied, evidenced and — where the contract allows — waived; what a long-stop date does; what happens if a condition is not met; how closing is prepared, sequenced and documented; and, crucially, why the contractual moment the parties call closing is not automatically the moment at which every Moroccan legal transfer, opposability and registration formality takes effect. It keeps hard boundaries: it does not re-derive the transfer-effectiveness doctrine owned by the share-transfer-agreement guide, does not become a merger-control guide, and provides no template or closing checklist.

In a Moroccan share sale, the seller usually makes a set of contractual statements about the company — what English-speaking deal teams call representations and warranties, and what Moroccan and French practice calls déclarations et garanties. This informational guide explains that middle layer of a transaction: what the seller asserts about ownership, accounts, contracts, tax, employment and litigation; how disclosure qualifies those statements; the difference between a disclosed risk and an undisclosed inaccuracy; and what may follow when a statement turns out to be wrong. It keeps two boundaries honest throughout: the familiar English label does not import its English-law effect into a Morocco-governed contract, and an inaccurate statement is not the same thing as fraud. It explains where due diligence, disclosure and a garantie d'actif et de passif each begin and end, and it provides no template and describes no service.

Acquiring an existing Moroccan company can be structured in more than one way — buying existing shares or interests, subscribing for newly issued interests, or acquiring selected assets and business rights — and the legal consequences depend on the structure, the company form, the sector, the contracts, the approvals, the foreign-exchange rules and what due diligence finds. This informational guide explains the acquisition lifecycle for a foreign investor: how a deal is structured, the difference between a share deal and an asset deal, whether and how a foreign investor may acquire, where due diligence fits, how the transaction is documented, the approvals and consents that may apply, and how signing, closing and post-closing work — with the honest limits at each step. It is an educational guide, not a service, and it links the dedicated guides that own the detail.

A share purchase or share transfer agreement is the contract that records the sale and transfer of shares or interests in an existing Moroccan company and sets the transaction-specific legal and commercial conditions of that transfer. This informational guide explains what the agreement is and does — parties, the shares transferred, price mechanics, title to the shares, conditions, contractual declarations and risk allocation, the garantie d'actif et de passif, signing versus closing, and completion — and it keeps three things carefully distinct that are often confused: how a SARL transfer differs from an SA transfer, and how validity between the parties differs from opposability to the company and to third parties and from tax registration. It is an educational guide, not a service, and it provides no template.

When someone buys the shares of an existing Moroccan company, the company keeps its history — its past tax, employment, litigation and contractual exposure travels with it. A negotiated contractual mechanism, known in Moroccan and French practice as a garantie d'actif et de passif (GAP), is often used to allocate to the seller the economic consequences of liabilities or asset shortfalls whose origin predates the sale but which surface afterwards. This informational guide explains what that seller-liability protection is and is not: that it is contractual and negotiated rather than a statutory requirement; how it differs from the share purchase agreement and from due diligence; what the asset and liability sides mean; how triggers, claim periods, caps, thresholds and exclusions work as negotiated variables; and where the honest limits lie. It provides no template and describes no service.

A Morocco-related contract can, in principle, be governed by a foreign law when the clause is valid under Moroccan private international law. But choosing foreign law does not make Moroccan mandatory rules disappear, does not import foreign procedure into a Moroccan lawsuit, does not select a foreign court, and does not mean a Moroccan court already knows the content of the chosen law. This guide is for foreign lawyers and companies contracting with Moroccan counterparties: what a governing-law clause decides, whether a Moroccan court will apply the chosen foreign law, the limits Moroccan law keeps, how foreign law is established before the court, and why choice of law is separate from choice of court, arbitration and enforcement.

A Moroccan-law legal opinion is a written analysis of defined questions of Moroccan law, prepared on a specified factual and documentary basis and stated subject to assumptions, qualifications and scope limits. It is not a guarantee, not a court decision, not due diligence, not an expert report, and not automatically a certificat de coutume. This informational guide explains what such an opinion can cover, what it cannot establish, how scope, assumptions, qualifications and reliance work, and how the work product differs from related ones — for foreign counsel, in-house teams, lenders and companies weighing a Morocco-connected matter.

Legal due diligence in Morocco is a structured, scope-limited review of a target business or asset — its corporate standing, ownership, key contracts, disputes, regulatory status and encumbrances — carried out on the documents made available and on such official records as exist, to identify legal risks before a transaction or investment. It is not a guarantee, not a certification that no liability exists, not the same as a legal opinion, and not a financial, accounting or tax review. This informational guide explains what legal due diligence examines, what Moroccan public records can and cannot confirm, which documents depend on target disclosure, the common legal red flags, and the honest limitations of a due-diligence review — for foreign investors, in-house and transaction teams, and foreign counsel.

When a Moroccan debtor enters a collective business-difficulties procedure, ordinary recovery stops working and the creditor has to protect its claim inside that procedure — by declaring it to the syndic within a defined deadline. This guide is for foreign suppliers, lenders, contractors and their counsel: who must declare, the deadline and the extra time for creditors domiciled outside Morocco, what happens to enforcement and pending litigation, security and retention of title, and what a lawyer in Morocco actually does on such a matter.

A foreign court order or subpoena does not by itself reach a witness or company inside Morocco. Formal evidence usually has to be obtained through Moroccan judicial cooperation, and the route depends first on any bilateral convention and then, where it applies, on the 1970 Hague Evidence Convention. This guide is for foreign lawyers, litigators and companies: whether a foreign order is enough, which route applies, whether a witness can be compelled, what a letter of request (commission rogatoire) does, and what foreign counsel can and cannot do directly in Morocco.

A clause selecting a foreign court can be legally significant, but it should not be assumed to eliminate Moroccan jurisdiction in every case. Whether a Moroccan court gives it effect depends on the clause's wording and scope, on whether the matter is one over which Moroccan jurisdiction is mandatory or exclusive, and on how and when the jurisdiction objection is raised. This guide is for foreign lawyers and companies contracting with Moroccan counterparties: what a choice-of-court clause decides, when it holds before a Moroccan court, when it does not, and how it differs from choice of law, arbitration and later enforcement.

A practical guide for foreign creditors and their counsel who fear a debtor's Moroccan assets may be sold or dissipated before a claim can be enforced: what a conservatory attachment is (and is not), the conditions, whether it can be obtained before a final judgment or before exequatur, which assets it can reach, and how it is challenged or lifted.

A practical guide for principals, manufacturers and suppliers ending a relationship with a Moroccan commercial agent or distributor: what the relationship really is, what notice and compensation may apply, and what to check before sending notice.

A practical guide for shareholders, founders and investors when a Moroccan shareholders' agreement is breached: what the agreement actually binds, how it interacts with the articles of association, which remedies exist, and why breaching the pact does not, by itself, undo a share transfer or a corporate decision.

A practical guide for foreign creditors and their counsel holding an arbitral award made abroad: how recognition and exequatur work in Morocco under the New York Convention and Law 95-17, why a foreign award is not treated like a foreign court judgment, the grounds on which enforcement can be refused, and how exequatur leads to execution against Moroccan assets.

A practical guide for foreign lawyers and companies that need to serve a civil or commercial court document on a recipient in Morocco: how to identify the correct legal channel, when the Hague Service Convention applies, why a bilateral convention may take precedence, how service is carried out and proved, and why valid service is not the same as recognition or enforcement.

A transactional guide for foreign investors acquiring an operating hotel in Morocco: what you are actually buying, how the structure changes the risk, and the due diligence behind a serious deal.

What to do when a shareholding relationship in a Moroccan company breaks down: how the company form changes your rights, what an accounting review can and cannot do, and the remedies that actually exist.

A practical guide for a buyer who has already paid for an off-plan (VEFA) property in Morocco and now faces a developer problem: how to place yourself in the legal sequence and what remedies actually exist.

What a Moroccan or foreign-owned company should weigh before dismissing, removing or negotiating the departure of a senior executive: the person's real legal status, the procedure, the financial exposure and the commercial-law overlap.

An informational guide for anyone who believes they were scammed or defrauded in Morocco — including tourists and people already back home: the difference between criminal fraud and a contract dispute, what evidence to preserve, bank and payment steps, online scams, reporting, and the role of a lawyer.

An informational guide to recognising a foreign divorce judgment in Morocco (exequatur): what the judge checks, the required documents, the special treatment of the dissolution of marriage under Law 58.25, civil-status transcription, and the role of a lawyer.

An informational guide for foreign companies, individuals and counsel on recognising and enforcing a foreign judgment in Morocco: recognition vs enforcement, the competent court and conditions under Law 58.25, required documents, and category differences.

A practical guide for a foreigner marrying a Moroccan in Morocco: the certificate of capacity or custom, documents, translation and legalization, the competent authority, the steps of the procedure, and when a lawyer may help.

A practical guide to Moroccan citizenship for the diaspora: citizenship by descent through a Moroccan father or mother, being born abroad, marriage, naturalization, and — above all — the difference between already holding citizenship and proving it with a nationality certificate.

A practical guide to inheritance in Morocco for foreign and cross-border heirs: what the estate includes, paying debts before distribution, identifying heirs, the inheritance certificate, inherited property, undivided ownership, disputes between heirs, and when a lawyer may help.

An informational guide to commercial law in Morocco for businesses and investors: contracts and risk prevention, unpaid invoices and debt recovery, commercial disputes and litigation, the commercial courts, and how to choose a lawyer.

A practical, neutral guide to finding a lawyer in Morocco: what an 'avocat' does, how the profession and bars work, whether a lawyer can act anywhere in the country, how to choose and verify one, how to find English-speaking support, and how remote work with foreign or business clients typically works.

This guide explains, informationally, the general steps, documents, and legal structures commonly used by foreign investors forming a company in Morocco.

This guide provides general, informational guidance on the legal checks commonly recommended before buying property in Morocco as a foreigner, and the risks to be aware of during the process.

This guide explains, informationally, when foreigners in Morocco commonly look for English-speaking legal support and what to keep in mind about language and documents.

This guide explains, informationally, the general residence permit process for foreigners in Morocco: eligibility categories, documents, and common mistakes.