Estonia sets up international court for arbitration of business disputes
17.05.2010, 16:00An international court for business disputes known as ICCMCA has started operations in Estonia and enables to resolve disputes in a more timely manner and with lower fees than the Estonian court system.
According to ICCMCA that stands for International Commercial Court for Mediation, Conciliation and Arbitration, the court's objective is to arbitrate civil disputes.
"The number of business disputes has grown considerably but because of the heavy workload of the courts the verdicts are often delayed. The internationally recognized dispute resolution model that ICCMCA uses is an outstanding alternative for many business disputes", said William Cronenberg, Chairman of the Council of ICCMCA. "Arbitration rulings have to be accepted in the same way as judgements by the national court system. Faster processing is a clear advantage of arbitration and fees are approximately half of the levies raised by the state courts" he added.
Estonia has joined the New York Convention of 1958 and the rulings of an arbitration court are enforceable in all signatory countries.
At ICCMCA, as usual in arbitration proceeding, the parties are free to select arbitrators; alternatively, if the parties do not come to a conclusion about the arbitrators, they can be selected by the Council of the Arbitration Court.
Some Estonian judges have agreed to be involved in the proceedings of the ICCMCA. „It's important to guarantee common law practice and uniform application of justice. Also in the Arbitration Court of the Estonian Chamber of Commerce state judges have for years served as arbitrators and they can be presiding judges" said Üllar Talviste, Member of the Council, ICCMCA.
Talviste emphasised that ICCMCA is not the only recently-founded arbitration court as for some months the Estonian Court for Arbitration has been active, solving disputes with a value of up to €25,000, excluding collateral claims in this amount. Arbitration courts are common in major industrial countries and business centres.
ICCMCA also administers mediations for a reduced fee calculated from the standard arbitration fee. Provided the parties have so agreed the mediation can proceed directly to arbitration if a meditated solution cannot be reached. Proceedings follow the published rules of ICCMCA, rules of UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) and other standard international rules.
Talviste added that ICCMCA also will offer conciliation as part of its mediation service which is a novel possibility in Estonia for solving business disputes. An Act on conciliation was approved just recently and has not spread into practice yet, but it also enables economical dispute resolution.
William Cronenberg is the Chairman of the US-registered court for arbitration and John Palmer, William Burns and Üllar Talviste are members of the Council.
William Cronenberg is American advocate and member of the New York Bar, resident of Estonia since 1992. William Burns is retired US Judge from the State of Montana and since 1999 lecturer of law in Estonia, currently at the Tallinn Technical University.
Professor John Palmer is retired Professor of Law from the US State of Ohio, who taught law in Estonia during 1996/97 and 2004 and has extensive arbitration experience. Üllar Talviste, Attorney at Law and former Chairman of the Estonian Bar, has been involved in several international arbitrations.