A Directive on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters was adopted today 23 April 2008. The purpose of the Directive is to facilitate access to cross-border dispute resolution and to promote the amicable settlement of disputes by encouraging the use of mediation and by ensuring a sound relationship between mediation and judicial proceedings. The Directive is one of the follow-up actions to the Green Paper on alternative dispute resolution presented by the Commission in 2002, the other being the European Code of Conduct for Mediators established by a group of stakeholders with the assistance of the Commission and launched in July 2004.

Welcoming the adoption of this Directive, Vice-President Jacques Barrot said: “This Directive fulfils the political objective established in October 1999 by the European Council of Tampere, which – in the context of encouraging better access to justice in Europe – called for the creation of alternative, extrajudicial procedures for dispute resolution in the Member States. Mediation can provide cost-effective and quick extrajudicial resolution of disputes in civil and commercial matters through processes tailored to the needs of the parties. Agreements resulting from mediation are more likely to be complied with voluntarily and help preserve an amicable and sustainable relationship between the parties.

The Commission proposed the Directive in October 2004 (IP/04/1288). The Directive facilitates recourse to mediation by strengthening the legal guarantees accompanying it, thus giving real added value to citizens and businesses in the European Union. The key components of the Directive are as follows:

The Directive obliges Member States to encourage the training of mediators and the development of, and adherence to, voluntary codes of conduct and other effective quality control mechanisms concerning the provision of mediation services.

The Directive gives every Judge in the Community, at any stage of the proceedings, the right to suggest that the parties attend an information meeting on mediation and, if the Judge deems it appropriate, to invite the parties to have recourse to mediation.

The Directive enables parties to give an agreement concluded following mediation a status similar to that of a Court judgment by rendering it enforceable. This can be achieved, for example, by way of judicial approval or notarial certification, thereby allowing such agreements to be enforceable in the Member States under existing Community rules.

The Directive ensures that mediation takes place in an atmosphere of confidentiality and that information given or submissions made by any party during mediation cannot be used against that party in subsequent judicial proceedings if the mediation fails. This provision is essential to give parties confidence in, and to encourage them to make use of, mediation.

To this end, the Directive provides that the mediator cannot be compelled to give evidence about what took place during mediation in subsequent judicial proceedings between the parties.

The provision of the Directive on periods of limitation and prescription will ensure that parties that have recourse to mediation will not be prevented from going to court as a result of the time spent on mediation. The Directive thus preserves the parties’ access to justice should mediation not succeed.

Source: A boost for mediation in civil and commercial matters: European Parliament endorses new rules

“This Act enables Canada to ratify a convention that has already been ratified by 143 countries, and that will provide Canadian investors with another internationally recognized instrument for protecting their assets abroad,” said Minister Bernier.

“This is welcome news for Canadian business,” said the Honourable David Emerson, Minister of International Trade. “Entrenching international standards will both promote and protect two-way investment between Canada and its trading partners around the world. These are key objectives of the Global Commerce Strategy.”

The ICSID Convention is a World Bank-sponsored instrument aimed at facilitating the free flow of international investment. It does this by providing foreign investors and host states with tools that enable dispute resolution through conciliation and arbitration, and it has become an internationally recognized, efficient and reliable mechanism for settling investment disputes. The ICSID arbitration rules were modified in 2006 to facilitate open hearings and the filing of amicus briefs. Canada’s ratification of the Convention not only provides additional protection to Canadian investors but also reinforces Canada’s investment-friendly image among foreign states.

The Convention can also be used by provinces and territories that pass implementing legislation. In recent years, four provinces—British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and Saskatchewan—have adopted legislation implementing the Convention in their jurisdictions. Nunavut has also legislated to that effect. The Government of Canada welcomes provincial and territorial support for the Convention and invites all provinces and territories that wish to use ICSID arbitration to pass implementing legislation.

Source:
Foreign Affairs Media Relations Office
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
613-995-1874
www.international.gc.ca/index.aspx

The most interesting issue is that e-Justice Centre, is a mediation and arbitration centre, in the 3D virtual world of Second Life.

Picture of the virtual ODR centre e-Justice:

Housed inside the building is the mediation and arbitration centre and all of the infrastructure needed to ensure its functioning. Besides this, the building has a further 3 rooms which can be used to hold conferences and the simulation of decisions and arbitration sessions, which will be the responsibility of the Lisbon New University’s Faculty of Law.

Through this initiative, the Ministry of Justice aims to promote the use of alternative means of dispute resolution as swift, informal and easy-to-use solutions via a channel accessible on a planetary scale, as well as emphasise the importance placed by the Portuguese government and the Presidency of the European Union on these resolution processes.

The initiative will also be an experiment into the use of methods of dispute resolution in an entirely informal and virtual manner, which could have future applications in real disputes.

It should be noted that in Second Life alone the number of resident avatars already exceeds 8 million, thereby representing a sufficient community of users to justify the creation of a dispute resolution centre.

Through this initiative, Portugal has become the first country to provide a means of dispute resolution in Second Life. Any Second Life resident with a dispute with any other resident related to a contract established in Second Life can use the Arbitration Centre provided by the eJustice Centre to settle the conflict.

The process is started by submitting a request for ADR to the eJustice Centre. The other party will then be notified and asked to accept settling the dispute using the eJustice Centre.

If they agree, both parties will then pay a fee for using the eJustice Centre (1% of the value under dispute) as well as deposit an escrow with the eJustice Centre up to 5% of the value under dispute (as a guarantee that they will submit to the decision made through mediation or arbitration). [Note: currently the fee is waived]

Both parties are then notified to present themselves to a mediation session. Mediation is an informal and flexible procedure where a third party — the mediator — will help both to enter an agreement to solve the dispute.

If during mediation, an agreement is found, the process finishes; if not, the arbitration phase begins.

Arbitration is presided by a panel of one to three arbitration judges, who will make an arbitration trial on the dispute, and, at the end, will emit a final decision.

If one party does not follow the decisions of the eJustice Centre, or does not follow the agreement established through mediation, the money held in escrow is given to the other party,

The mediation and arbitration provided by the eJustice Centre are overseen by the RAL Lab of the New University of Lisbon’s Law School.

More information about e-Justice Centre:
- Second Life
- e-Justice Centre

China‘s top legislature started to read the draft law on labor dispute mediation and arbitration amid an increasing number of labor disputes that emerged in the country. The draft law was submitted Sunday to the seven-day 29th session of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), or China’s top legislature, for the first reading. Arbitration in labor dispute cases will be important because in China are continuously increasing in recent years. Statistics show that labor dispute arbitration organizations at various levels dealt with 1.72 million labor dispute cases involving 5.32 million employees from 1987 to the end of 2005, with a growth rate of 27.3 percent annually.

Xin Chunying, vice Chairman of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee said on the legislative session that excepting the increasing number of labor disputes, other problems also exist. For instance, the personnel in arbitration organizations are not professional and thus lack credibility and the process of arbitrating labor disputes is long, making the cost of arbitration high.

China resumed the labor dispute arbitration system in 1987 and formed the procedures for coping with labor disputes as “mediation, arbitration and trial” after the regulation on handling corporate labor dispute and Labor Law were promulgated in 1993 and 1994. The procedure and practice for dealing with labor disputes have been widely accepted by the public.

The draft bill is for strengthening mediation and improving arbitration so as to help fairly solve labor disputes without going to court and thus safeguard employee’s legitimate rights and promote social harmony. The draft bill said corporate itself is entitled to establish labor mediation committee to solve the labor disputes occurred in its own corporate so as to solve disputes at grassroots level. The corporate labor mediation committee should consist of employees and representatives of managerial level. When labor disputes occur, litigants can turn to the corporate mediation committee, or grassroots people’s labor disputes mediation organization, the draft bill said.

The draft bill said labor disputes concerning pay, medical fee of job-related injuries, compensation, pension whose relevant sum do not exceed 12 months of local minimum monthly wages could be solved by arbitration. The arbitration documents have legal effects upon being handed out. Labor disputes on working time, holidays, social insurance and collective contracts could also be solved by arbitration with legal effects, said the draft bill.

World of Arbitration In a civilised society, citizens look to the courts to settle their disputes. The courts put judges at the disposal of the parties, the courts determine the substantive and procedural law which is to be applied and the courts enforce their own orders through court officers, when necessary. It is a one-stop shop.

For those engaged in alternative dispute resolution – ADR, the courts are available not merely to enforce decisions and awards but also to supervise and control the chosen ADR procedures, should matters go awry.

Where disputes arise in the international arena, the picture is a little different because national courts are rarely acceptable to both sides. Disputes between states or between an individual and a foreign state or between an individual and an international organisation may be regarded as being in a special category, where the aggrieved party may have recourse to treaty arbitration. Examples are arbitration before the PCA1 and arbitration under the auspices of ICSID2. Beyond that special category, the parties must make express provision for dispute resolution in their agreement, failing which the aggrieved party will be left to seek his remedy from the domestic courts of one country or another, depending upon which will assume jurisdiction.

The result is a contrast. Whereas national courts often represent a convenient and acceptable means of dispute resolution for parties to a dispute which has no international element, there is no international equivalent. In consequence, most international disputes fall to be resolved through a process or by a tribunal which is essentially consensual in origin.

This paper is concerned with the resolution of disputes arising under international construction contracts. The purpose is to survey the available alternatives and to identify some of the considerations to be borne in mind by those concerned. In this last context, the emphasis is on two key considerations, being enforcement and applicable law.

Enforcement

It is convenient to note at this stage that there is more than one aspect to enforcement. Thus, we may distinguish between enforcement in the sense of ensuring implementation of the chosen disputes resolution procedure, on the one hand, and enforcement in the sense of giving effect to the resulting award or decision, on the other.

There are various conventions which bear upon enforcement. However, on the international stage, it is the New York Convention which is of most significance. Replacing the Geneva Convention of 1927, the New York Convention provides a simple and effective method of obtaining recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. By Article II, Contracting States agree to recognise arbitration agreements in writing and undertake that their courts, if seized of an action in respect of which the parties have made an arbitration agreement in writing, will, in principle, refer the parties to arbitration. Further, By Article III, awards made in the territory of a Contracting State, provided that they are made pursuant to an arbitration agreement in writing, are to be recognised and enforced by another Contracting State. Limited grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement are set out in Article V. These are as follows:

Article V(1) (Conflict with the law of the State where the award was made or where the arbitration proceedings took place)

1. Incapacity of parties and invalidity of arbitration agreement.

5. Award not yet binding or already set aside or suspended.

Article V(2) (Conflict with the law of the State where recognition or enforcement is sought)

1. Dispute not capable of settlement by arbitration.

2. Recognition or enforcement contrary to public policy.

In applying such grounds for refusal of enforcement, it is customary for the courts of contracting states to allow a margin of appreciation in recognition of the fact that the award was made in another jurisdiction. For example, although ad hoc arbitration agreements are void under the PRC Arbitration Act 1995, the courts of the PRC have nevertheless chosen to enforce arbitration awards rendered by ad hoc tribunals in foreign jurisdictions, rather than invoking the public policy ground set out in Article V(ii)(b)5.

Applicable Law

The second key consideration concerns the applicable law. It is in the context of arbitration that the need to ascertain the applicable law is most acute. It has been said that, without undue sophistication, there are at least five different systems of law which may have a bearing on an international commercial arbitration6. Allowing for the fact that this paper is concerned not only with arbitration but also with other forms of ADR, the five may be expressed as follows:

1. The law governing the parties’ capacity to enter into an dispute resolution agreement;

2. The law which governs the dispute resolution agreement and its performance;

3. The law which governs the existence and proceedings of the mediator, conciliator or tribunal – sometimes known in the context of arbitration as the lex arbitri;

4. The law governing the substantive issues in dispute, generally described as the applicable law, the governing law, the substantive law or the proper law of the contract;

5. The law governing recognition and enforcement of the award or decision (which may in practice be more than one, if the attempt to enforce has to be made in more than one jurisdiction).

Having noted above a distinction between enforcement in different senses, it is to be observed that enforcement in the sense of ensuring implementation of the chosen disputes resolution procedure is governed by the law at (2) above, whilst enforcement in the sense of giving effect to the resulting award or decision is governed by the law at (5).

Mediation and Conciliation

The parties to an international dispute may embark on mediation or conciliation. If they do it will either be because the contract calls for it or because they have agreed to do so on an ad hoc basis. Various institutions involved in international dispute resolution have published protocols providing for mediation or conciliation, such as the ICE7, the ICC8, the LCIA9 and the HKIAC10.

Since such procedures depend largely for their success upon the parties reaching consensus, the fact that the dispute has an international element tends to have relatively little bearing on the proceedings, save that, for one party or the other (and perhaps both) the applicable substantive law may be foreign. However, the international element cannot wholly be overlooked. Those involved will wish to bear in mind the effect of anything said and done in the context of a mediation upon any subsequent means of dispute resolution to be undertaken if the mediation fails. For example:

1. The privilege against disclosure and production of documents which common lawyers associate with the epithet without prejudice is unknown in Greek law. Accordingly, if the ultimate arbitration is to be conducted according to Greek procedural law, the parties to any mediation process should be aware that any documents disclosed may ultimately come to the attention of the arbitral tribunal even if the parties purport to conduct the mediation on a without prejudice basis.

2. Parties who succeed in settling their dispute in mediation do well to include in the settlement agreement not only a term which identifies the law which governs the settlement agreement itself but also a term (if it can be agreed) to the effect that in the event of dispute both parties agree to submit to the jurisdiction of a particular national court.

It may also be necessary to have the law applicable to enforcement in mind when considering the possibility of dispensing with mediation even though it is expressly provided for. Thus, if the disputes resolution procedure laid down by the contract makes mediation a condition precedent to arbitration, the party who fails to cooperate in mediation may do so at its peril. The court from whom enforcement is sought might decline to do so under Article V of the New York Convention, either upon the basis that the arbitral procedure was not in accordance with the agreement of the parties (Article V(1)(d)) or on the basis that enforcement would be contrary to public policy (Article V(2)(b)).

A similar problem might arise in with the process sometimes known as “Med-Arb”. In, for example, the PRC an arbitral tribunal may well find itself acting as mediator and conciliator. In that jurisdiction, there is no objection to the tribunal subsequently resumed its arbitral function, provided that the award is rendered promptly. But, whereas such a procedure would be regarded as quite normal in the PRC, it might not be seen in the same light elsewhere. Accordingly, there is a risk that if enforcement were sought in some other jurisdiction, it might well be resisted under the New York Convention on public policy grounds.

Disputes Boards

For a project of any size involving contracting parties of different national origins, the contract which provides for the interim resolution of disputes on referral by a Disputes Board11 is now the rule rather than the exception. The rules under which such a body operates tend to vary from project to project. However, a degree of standardisation has been introduced as a result of the publication of standard rules both by the ICC12 and by FIDIC13.

Typically, the Disputes Board is appointed at the commencement of the project; its members are required to visit the site periodically and to familiarise themselves with the works; disputes come before the Disputes Board only upon referral by one or other of the parties; and the Disputes Board’s decision (or “recommendation”) binds the parties, subject to review by an Arbitral Tribunal (or, more rarely, by the courts).

Once again, the international element of the dispute tends to have little bearing on the proceedings conducted before the Disputes Board. However, practitioners still need to take into account the effect of different systems of law. Thus:

1. The enforceability of the Disputes Board procedure will be governed by the law which governs the disputes resolution provisions generally.

2. The enforceability of the Disputes Board’s decision will be governed by the law of the state in which enforcement is sought.

Let it be supposed that a substantial infrastructure is part complete when a dispute over valuation arises, leading the contractor to issue a threat to suspend all work on the relevant part of the project unless its demands for payment are met. Let it be supposed further that the employer then seeks injunctive relief to restrain the contractor from carrying out its threat. The contractor maintains that the court ought to decline jurisdiction in favour of the Disputes Board constituted in accordance with the Disputes Resolution provisions. The issue for the court is whether or not to enforce the contractual procedure. Many will recognise these as the outline facts of the Channel Tunnel case14. As is well known, the House of Lords preferred to enforce the contractual disputes resolution procedure. In doing so, it may be regarded as having applied the law governing the dispute resolution agreement and its performance.15

The moral of the tale is that the practitioner should keep well in mind the likely attitude of the courts in the state in which enforcement action might be taken.

Treaty Arbitration

The PCA situated at The Hague was established by the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes included at The Hague in 1899 and revised in 1907. Where the relevant state is a party to one or other of the two Hague Conventions, a dispute may be referred to the PCA where at least one party is a state, state entity or an intergovernmental organisation.

ICSID was established by the Washington Convention of 1965,16 better known as the ICSID Convention. It gives both private individuals and corporations who are “investors” in a foreign state the right to bring legal proceedings against that state before an international arbitral tribunal. “Investors” in this context include a foreign contractor implementing a construction project in the territory of the state in question. Here, the source of authority to arbitrate is a bilateral investment treaty. For the contractor who qualifies as an “investor”, this offers the opportunity to institute proceedings before an international Arbitral Tribunal administered by ICSID in Washington. The advantages to the “investor” are that there is no fear of the outcome being influenced by the Respondent state as there might be if the dispute could only be litigated or arbitrated within the borders of that state. Furthermore, state immunity is much restricted.

A full review of ICSID arbitration is beyond the scope of this paper. However, a particular problem to be noted is that which can arise where the underlying construction contract itself provides for the arbitration of disputes. In such a case, what sometimes appears to be a contest between two tribunals can arise in the event that one party purports to refer to a dispute to the contract tribunal, whilst the other purports to refer the same dispute to a tribunal constituted by ICSID.17

Arbitration pursuant to Agreement

Turning to arbitration pursuant to agreement, there is a distinction between an arbitration agreement incorporated into the contract at the outset and an arbitration agreement which is concluded ad hoc. But, either way, the threshold questions concern what is agreed or provided for as to the constitution of the Tribunal and what procedural law is be applied.

Parties commonly agree that the dispute is to be arbitrated in accordance with specified institutional rules such as those of UNCITRAL,18 the ICC,19 the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce,20 the HKIAC,21 CIETAC,22 SIAC23 and the Swiss Chambers of Commerce.24 In such a case, these threshold questions are likely to be provided for, if not agreed.

Where the parties do not adopt institutional rules, matters such as the constitution of the tribunal and the choice of procedural law fall to be settled in the event of dispute by the courts of the state in which the arbitration takes place. In English law, the approach would be to resolve such disputes by reference to the law which governs the arbitration agreement.

Thus, in the Star International case,25 the contractual arbitration clause was silent as to the procedural rules to be followed. After the award had been published, the unsuccessful party sought to challenge it on the basis that no oral hearing had been held. The court, applying English law, held that the absence of a hearing did not amount to unfairness and declined to interfere with the award.

Once the tribunal has been constituted and the procedural rules identified, practitioners are likely to find it necessary to refer to any one or more of a number of different systems of law.

Let it be supposed, for example, that the claimant seeks interim conservatory relief, perhaps an order that an area of allegedly defective flooring be preserved so that forensic tests can be conducted. In the first instance, there is a question whether the tribunal has jurisdiction to make such an order. The answer to that question will depend on the lex arbitri. In many cases, institutional rules expressly confer jurisdiction upon the tribunal to make such an order. Beyond that, if the tribunal does make an order, there is a question whether the local court should enforce it. The answer to that question will depend in part on the lex arbitri, in that the court would be unlikely to enforce an order made without jurisdiction. But it may depend also on the law of the state in which enforcement is sought. In the PRC, for example, it is unlikely that such an order would be enforced, since it seems that it is only the court which is regarded as having power to order interim relief.

Then again, let it be supposed that, following publication of the award, the losing party seeks to challenge it. The question whether or not the award can be challenged may depend in part on the lex arbitri. Thus, for example, the ICC Rules are regarded at least in England and Wales as excluding appeals26. But if the institutional rules are silent on the point, the question of challenge may depend on the law of the place of the arbitration. So, if such a situation were to arise in a case where the arbitration took place in, say, South Korea, the court would be likely to assume jurisdiction to set aside the award on grounds similar to those given in Article V of the New York Convention for refusing enforcement, provided that an order for enforcement has not already been made.27

In the same way, there are a number of circumstances in which the practitioner will wish to have in mind not only the lex arbitri but also the law of the state in which the arbitration takes place. These include where a party seeks to restrain the tribunal from proceeding at all, where a party seeks security for costs,28 where a party seeks to sub-poena witnesses; where a party seeks an order for disclosure of documents from a non-party; where a party seeks to challenge an award for lack of due process,29 and so on.

Discusion about this paper in Keating Chambers – United Kingdom – International Dispute Resolution website:
Article by John Marrin QC
United Kingdom: International Dispute Resolution.

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=44022&searchresults=1

The research project follows the European Commission’s Green Paper on ADR and the subsequent report of the European Parliament. Both the report and the summary of responses to the Green Paper emphasised the need for further research into ADR before any harmonisation could be attempted on a European level.

The study concentrates on court-annexed mediation schemes for commercial disputes, excluding the areas of family and employment law, and will focus on the 15 member states. The aim of the research is to compile a geographical guide describing the development of ADR in each member state. From this it will be possible to analyse the relative progress of each country and isolate any key issues which warrant further research.

CEDR and CMS aim to regularly update the report in order to provide a contemporary view of the development of mediation across the EU.

Completing the questionnaire
As part of the research we would be grateful if you as a Law Firm, ADR provider, public administrations or other interested stakeholder, could find the time to complete the questionnaire to assist CEDR in compiling an accurate study into the current status of mediation in the EU.

The questionnaire, available in English, French and German, can be downloaded in word format in the following website..

Year 2003

While our current geographic focus is the San Francisco Bay Area, qualified neutrals in other major cities are also encouraged to contact us.

Please reply by in complete confidence with a resume to panel@mediatorswanted.com

http://www.mediatorswanted.com/”

Year 2003

Elected officers are: President- Dr. Poch Gonzalez, Internal Vice President-Roy Carpio, External Vice President-Ver dela Cerna, Secretary-Tense Villa, Treasurer-Annie Ang, and Auditor-Bebot Yap. A general assembly will be conducted on October 14, 2002 at the Sacred Heart Center.”

Year 2002