Europe\u27s Role in Alternative Dispute Resolution: Off to a Good Start?

ADR has become a topical issue in contemporary European procedural private law. Over the past fifteen years, European lawmakers have displayed particular interest in extra-judicial dispute resolution methods as part of a broader effort to promote better access to justice. For example, Directive 2008/52 sets out a framework for the use of mediation in cross-border disputes on civil and commercial matters. The European Commission\u27s influential Recommendations 98/257 and 2001/310, which respectively deal with out-of-court dispute settlements and consensual dispute mechanisms, constitute a starting point for constructing a new approach to ADR. In March of 2013, the European Parliament and the European Council adopted a Directive and Regulation on Consumer ADR. These are the most recent initiatives in a series of efforts to enhance consumer redress while improving the functioning of the internal marke

The European Succession Regulation and the Arbitration of Trust Disputes

Over the last few decades, U.S. citizens have become increasingly mobile, with significant numbers of individuals living, working, and investing abroad. Estate planning has become equally international, generating ever-larger numbers of cross-border succession cases. While these sorts of developments are welcome, they require lawyers to appreciate and anticipate the various ways that the laws of different jurisdictions can interact. One of the most important recent developments in international succession law comes out of the European Union. While the European Succession Regulation may initially appear applicable only to nationals of E. U. Member States, U.S. citizens can also be affected by its provisions. This Article analyzes the interaction between the Regulation and trust arbitration, which has become increasingly popular in various U.S. and foreign jurisdictions. In so doing, the Article discusses how trust arbitration furthers the goals of the Regulation and how individual provisions in the Regulation may support or restrict the possibility of arbitration of trust-related disputes

Report on Alternative Dispute Resolution within the Context of Better Access to Justice

A right of access to judicial protection meant essentially the aggrieved individual?s formal right to litigate or defend a claim. Access to justice is defined as to be able to easily access to justice by all segments of society and to provide them all kinds of means by state in order to seek right to judicial remedy by individuals and to inform effectively about the existence of these rights. Lack of efficiency in these facilities concerning access to justice may jeopardise public confidence to the judicial mechanism and therefore the state system

Heading towards online dispute resolution in the Slovak Republic

The paper highlights the various aspects of the electronisation of judicial and extra-judicial dispute resolution in the Slovak Republic. The author concludes that arbitration as a form of dispute settlement process may take an electronic form in Slovakia, with the exception of issuing the arbitration decisions which must always take a paper form – for the sake of legal certainty. An alternative dispute resolution in consumer disputes, taking the form of mediation is a novelty in Slovakia and was only introduced in 2016, under the respective EU Regulation. This also foresaw an electronic platform to facilitate online cross-border consumer dispute resolution. Finally, the recently introduced new rules on civil judicial procedure in Slovakia (1st July 2016) also brought about some enhancements with regard to electronisation of dispute resolution. In addition to the possibilities of filing electronic submissions, hearings can also take place with the use of electronic means; public notices must be published on a website of a court or relevant authority and the delivery of court documents was also widely electronised based on a recent Act on e-Government

Tillämpningen av flerstegstvistlösningsklausuler : En komparativ analys av utvalda jurisdiktioner

Multi-tier dispute resolution (“MDR”) clauses are tailored clauses that prescribe a layered process of dispute resolution, wherein parties in dispute must first undertake one or more alternative dispute resolution processes before they can refer the dispute to adjudication before an arbitral tribunal or a court. The use of MDR-clauses has become increasingly commonplace in Nordic commercial contracts, but the extent to which a Nordic arbitral tribunal or court would be willing to enforce this order of dispute resolution, and what remedies or sanctions such enforcement would result in, are questions that neither legislators nor legal scholars have provided a comprehensive and satisfying answer to. This scholarly and legislative gap in turn calls into question the usefulness and efficiency of this increasingly common contractual clause. This thesis aims to answer the question of what the Nordic (with a primary focus on the Finnish) legal systems can learn from the way legal scholars, legislators and judges in the Continental European and Anglo-American legal systems have approached the enforcement of MDR-clauses, and how such lessons could aid in creating a working legislative framework for their enforcement in the Nordics. As a result of a general lack of discussion on the subject by Nordic lawyers, this thesis primarily employs a comparative method. Specifically, the comparative research focuses on jurisdictions within the Anglo-American legal system and their Continental European counterparts, where relatively definitive and mostly consistent case law and scholarly debate regarding the enforcement of MDR-clauses has emerged over time. While the analysis concludes that enforceability of MDR-clauses in the Nordics is uncertain at best, it also identified several key concepts necessary for a functional legislative scheme allowing for such enforcement. Given the general disinterest in the subject matter shown by Nordic lawyers, this thesis concludes that legislative change is unlikely to develop on a national level, but rather that international harmonization, preferably from the EU, is required to effect change in the enforceability of MDR-clauses