Clients ask a version of this question all the time: if a cheque bounces, does the person who wrote it go to prison unless the word "guarantee" is written on the cheque itself? A recent Court of First Instance decision, in which the drawer was acquitted, is a useful illustration of how these matters actually turn out. The wording on the cheque is not what decides it. What decides it is proof of what the cheque was given for.
The criminal offence
Issuing a cheque without sufficient funds is a criminal offence in Qatar under Article 357 of the Penal Code, but the offence requires bad faith. The prosecution has to show that the drawer wrote the cheque knowing there were no funds behind it and intending it to work as a means of payment. A cheque handed over to secure a separate obligation is not a means of payment in that sense, and the courts have long accepted that a genuine security cheque does not carry criminal liability.
The difficulty is proving it. A lot of people assume the only way to show a cheque was security is to write "guarantee" across its face, so that a cheque without the word must be a payment cheque. That assumption is common, and it is mistaken.
What happened in the case
A cheque drawn on a Qatari bank was presented and returned for insufficient funds. The beneficiary filed a complaint, and the Public Prosecution charged the drawer under Article 357.
The defence was that the cheque had been given as security in connection with a business sale, supported by a copy of the written agreement between the parties, signed by both and filed at the first hearing. One clause of that agreement provided that a cheque in the same amount as the disputed cheque would be returned to the drawer once the sale was completed. Nothing was written on the cheque to mark it as a guarantee.
The beneficiary's own evidence
The court heard the beneficiary give evidence under oath. He insisted the cheque was a payment cheque rather than security, but under questioning he accepted that it had been undated when he received it, that he had held it for about a year before taking it to the bank, and that the signature on the agreement was his. He also accepted that the clause about returning a cheque in that amount was referring to the cheque in dispute. Once those admissions were on the record, his own account undercut the charge.
The court's reasoning
The court applied the settled principles of Qatari criminal procedure, citing the Court of Cassation (Criminal Cassation 169/2007 and 39/2009): the accused is presumed innocent until guilt is proved in a lawful trial; the burden rests entirely on the prosecution, and the accused need not prove innocence; a conviction has to rest on certainty rather than suspicion; and any real doubt is resolved in favour of the accused.
On the evidence, the court was not satisfied that the charge was made out. The cheque had been handed over undated, as security, a year before it was presented, and the beneficiary's own agreement provided for its return. The court also noted that the real disagreement was a commercial one about the parties' obligations under the sale, which belongs in front of the civil and commercial courts, not the criminal court. The drawer was acquitted, and the claim for the value of the cheque was referred to the competent civil court.
What the case shows
The word "guarantee" is not the test. The court never went looking for it. It looked at the agreement, at how and when the cheque had changed hands, and at what the beneficiary himself admitted. A cheque marked "guarantee" with nothing to back it up can still end in a conviction, and a cheque with no marking at all, supported by a clear written agreement, can end in an acquittal.
What carried real weight was the document. The agreement referred to the cheque and said when it would come back, and that is what turned the case. Anyone handing over a cheque as security should make sure there is a record of that kind, because it is worth far more than a word written on the cheque.
The timing helped too. A payment cheque is usually dated and cashed within a short period. A cheque that is handed over undated and then kept for a year is hard to present, later, as a straightforward means of payment, and the court was alert to that.
One thing an acquittal does not do is cancel the debt. The criminal case was over, but the money question moved to the civil court, and if a sum is genuinely owed under the underlying agreement it can still be pursued there. The two are separate.
None of this makes a security cheque safe by default. This was a first instance decision on its own facts, and the same court has convicted where the only support for the security argument was the drawer's own word. The point is not that security cheques never lead to conviction. It is that the result follows the evidence, which is where the work is.
If you are the beneficiary
A security cheque is not a shortcut to the criminal courts. If the cheque was given to secure an agreement, filing a complaint and presenting it can end in an acquittal and a referral to the civil courts, which is where the dispute belonged in the first place. If you want security you can actually enforce, you are far better served by a properly drafted agreement and, where it fits, a bank guarantee.
If you gave the cheque
If you handed over a cheque as security and a complaint has now been filed, pull together the underlying agreement, any messages about the cheque, and anything that shows when and why it was given. Get advice early. In this case the defence was built from documents put in at the first hearing, and the acquittal followed from them.
Facing a bounced-cheque complaint, or holding a security cheque?
We act for drawers and beneficiaries in cheque matters before the criminal and civil courts, and in the commercial disputes behind them.
Debt & commercial disputes → Contact the firm →This article describes a Court of First Instance decision and is provided for general information only. It does not constitute legal advice, and outcomes depend on the facts of each case.