A seminar on “India as Centre of Fast Arbitration” was organized by the Indian Centre for Fast Arbitration (ICFA) on April 28 at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi..The seminar also witnessed the launch of a book “Supreme Court on Arbitration and Contract” by former Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Vijender Jain..The focus of the seminar was on the concept and need of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) in present day scenario..Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) is one of the branches of alternative dispute resolution which puts technology into use to facilitate the resolution of disputes between parties..It is an online support system which is used to record and archive the live proceedings of arbitration for further use. Another key benefit of ODR is that it provides online support to keep a track of cases, the panel of arbitrators, awards and amongst other things..Speaking at the occasion, Justice Jain opined that India should focus on resolving commercial disputes in a prompt manner in order to boost its quest in becoming an economic superpower..“There is a positive correlation between access to quality arbitration and boosts to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), therefore India’s quest to become economic superpower can be fulfilled only if commercial disputes are resolved speedily. Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) was introduced for that purpose, but lack of trust in Arbitration turned out to be a problem.”.Key-note speaker and Director General CPWD, Abhai Sinha highlighting the role of ODR in eliminating the major challenges before ADR system opined that,. “Proper training and support system is required to contain the delays, increase transparency and refrain judicial intervention and ICFA seems to have taken a lead in it. There is a need to institutionalize the arbitration process and that can be done only with the integration with technology,”.Former Law Secretary VK Agarwal spoke on the evolution of arbitration over the past 100 years..“The concept of Arbitration was first given in Civil Procedure Code 1908 and was subsequently amended on numerous occasions. However, a complete act on the subject came only in 1996. We had basically copied 95 percent from the model law of UN then but later realized some amendments were required. In today’s context, support from ODR can turn out to be quite effective.”.Senior Advocate, Ramamurthi Santhankrishnan said that third-party funding in arbitration should be allowed to act as an additional financial and risk management tool..“Allowing third parties to fund arbitrations, could be a good move. It entails the funding of an arbitration proceeding by a party that is not a party to the dispute in question. The availability of this facility offers businesses an additional financial and risk management tool when engaging in arbitration proceedings. This practice is already followed in London, Paris, and Singapore.”.The session ended with a vote of thanks by Senior Advocate Aruneshwar Gupta.
