The Regulation and Supervision Bureau was founded in 1999 following the passing of an Emirate law reference Law No (2) of 1998. During 1997 and 1998 a privatisation committee was formed by the Abu Dhabi Government to study the UK model of un-bundling and privatisation of the then Water and Electricity Department (WED) which was a government owned vertically integrated organisation. Eventually, the WED Sector was broken into 12 companies including: production (4 off), transmission, distribution and supply (2 off) a single buyer and a number of smaller companies such as the remote services and islands grouping.