Legal and Regulatory Requirements to Implement Sukuk in Algeria: Learning from Malaysian Experience

In the last two years, Algeria has shown its willingness to introduce Sukuk into the capital market after introduction of new regulations related to Islamic banking and Takaful. Currently, there are no Sukuk regulations. Thus, Algeria may adopt best practices of Sukuk regulation like Malaysia. The paper's purpose is to examine whether Algeria can learn from Malaysia’s experience in order to establish sound Sukuk regulations. The paper uses the exploratory approach to review the main existing legal documents related to Sukuk in the two countries and uses the interpretive analysis to examine legal and regulatory data. Although there are several legal divergences underpinning the legal and regulatory framework of the two countries, the Malaysian experience can be a suitable regulatory model to implement in the Algerian context with the adaptation of some rules. Relevant Algerian laws such as civil, commercial, and capital market regulations should be amended to permit adequate Sukuk issuance. Besides, Algerian regulators have to prepare sound Shariah governance and tax incentives. The study focuses on the mainland Malaysia regulatory framework that relates to Sukuk issuance and does not discuss the Labuan regulatory scheme. It is the earliest study that sets out the possibility to implement the Sukuk regulation framework in the Algerian context referring to a pioneering country like Malaysia. It contributes significantly to the legal and regulatory conceptual framework of many civil jurisdictions whose aim is to introduce Sukuk.