In accordance with legal order of 2017, Law No: 1, offenders with returned cheques worth AED 200,000 or lesser can be taken care or decided by the prosecution itself, without being transferred it to the judiciary, that would be the maximum fine/penalty of AED 10,000/-.

If the amount of the bounced cheque is above AED 200,000/-, this is forwarded to criminal court and the court may punish the offender either by a fine or jail term.

The present law pertaining to bounced cheques are going to be changed from January 2, 2022 as per the amendment of Federal Law of 1993, No: 18 in last September. In line with new amendment, banks should be obliged to release the available balance in the defaulter’s account against the cheque to satisfy the claim of beneficiary. This amendment will help the beneficiary to reduce the time lag in such cases and to affirm his rights, since the returned cheque will be considered as a valid document which could be enforced and directly executed in UAE Court.
Nonetheless, the amendment preserves the rights of cheque beneficiary by valuing the cheque as a valid deed, which hastens the collection exercise through civil courts. Civil courts can command the issuer of the returned cheque to make full payment against the cheque or the outstanding balance to be paid. If he fails to make the payments, his assets might be acquired to satisfy the amount and he must be imprisoned for failing to respect the court’s decision.

In addition to this, Article 642 provides for a new punishment like publishing the judgement of the person convicted in two local newspapers (one in English paper and the other one in Arabic paper) including convicted person’s name, occupation and residence. Besides, the payment of cost of publishing should be borne by the convicted guy.