Legal and practical issues on on-line arbitration

Résumé du document

At times, the GATT conferences have become headlines on the general news, and are not only reserved to the specialised news, no one can be unaware that, exchanges tend to become global. This globalization concerns several fields: human first of all, there is no need anymore of a recession or a famine to justify the fact that people cross borders; cultural of course, many people in the world have been able to read the book of the 2000 Nobel prize in Literature Gao Xingjian, whereas, this book is illegal in his own country. So, many commercial disputes arise between parties located everywhere on the globe. This globalization is surely not going to stop, even less reverse, especially now that there is no need anymore to physically cross borders due to information technology. Indeed, during the last years a technological revolution has been witnessed, brought about by the Internet. This innovation can even be considered as the most important one since the discovery of printing, five centuries ago. The electronic means of communication, so created, have been quickly adopted by practitioners, and one of the main applications of these innovations has been found in the electronic commerce, as practitioners have quickly become aware of using technological innovations in order to promote and develop their business.

Extraits

[...] Facing this success, privates companies started to provide dispute resolution services using an online process. Of course then, the dispute resolution service is not free of charge anymore. Cybersettle.com Inc. has set up a completely automated on-line system, that aims to facilitate the settlement of disputes for an amount of money. Every party will have to enter on the web site three amounts that would constitute an offer or a demand of settlement. The amounts will then be automatically compared, and if two of the amounts are within of each other, the claim will be settle for the median amount. [...]

[...] Characteristics of on-line arbitration The use of these technological means during the arbitration process enables a lot of savings. The most important point is that it saves time, what is a precious value for practitioners. Indeed, the parties do not have to travel to the meetings and hearings. It is easier then to organise these meetings and hearings as it will take less time to the parties and arbitrators to get there: it would then be easier to agree on a date. [...]

[...] Each party will actually see on his computer screen and hear all the other parties as if they were all in the same room, and will be able to respond to them the same way Finally, instead of exchanging information via the Internet, the parties can choose to keep these information on the network, on a web site. Each party will have the codes needed to modify the content of the web site, and the documents will be stored on this web site. [...]

[...] Definition of on-line arbitration. Technologies that can be used Many innovations that have appeared in the field of information technology during the last ten years can be used in order to make arbitration more efficient, and especially more convenient in resolving disputes relating to electronic commerce. The first one of these innovations is the simplest and the most used: it is the transmission of information and documents by electronic mail, or e-mail. The e-mail is similar to postal mail as every user has a personal address, but instead of using the postal services to deliver it, the message will travel trough the Internet in order to reach the addressee. [...]

[...] Quickly, it showed its 1 UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce, 1996: http://www.uncitral.org/english/texts/electcom/ml-ecomm.htm 2 General Usage for International Digitally Ensured Commerce, 6th November 1997: http://www.iccwbo.org/home/guidec/guidec.asp 3 Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market ('Directive on electronic commerce'): http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/lif/dat/2000/en_300L0031.html 4 American Arbitration Association: http://www.adr.org/ 3 limits in resolving disputes relating to electronic commerce, as the new means of communication commonly used in practice were not taken into account by the classical procedure. Also, practitioners were willing to use a procedure more adapted to their business. Based on the classical procedure, using the same basic principles and characteristics, a new type of arbitration procedure appeared that incorporated the innovations brought in the field of information technology: the procedure of on-line arbitration. The discussion of on-line arbitration has two major themes. [...]