Legal Research

Take-Aways: International ODR and Consumers Conference ? Vancouver BC

By David Bilinsky

? When the time has come
i believe the time has come
feels like a change
when the time….?

Lyrics and Music by: Johnny Pierce; Sean Hopper, Huey Lewis, Christopher Hayes, William Gibson, recorded by Huey Lewis & The News.

ODR 2010 Vancouver

The two-day 2010 Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) and Consumers Conference wrapped up Nov. 3 in Richmond, BC. This conference is the latest in a series of conferences being held world-wide on the issue of implementing a global system for ODR for low-value consumer claims. The prior conferences were held in Vienna and Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2010. The next conference will be the 10th ODR Forum held in Chennai, India from the 7th -9th of February 2011.

What were the top 10 take-aways from this conference?

One: “We are moving closer to the 1st extrajudicial global redress system ever created” per: Colin Rule (eBay/PayPal).

Two: “This has been the year of ODR” per: Vikki Rogers (Director Institute of International Commercial law, Pace Law School)

Three: “Existing global ODR systems (VISA, eBay) are resolving millions of disputes/year” per: Zybnek Loebl (Panelist of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center in Geneva).

Four: “e-commerce transactions expected to rise to 16 trillion $ very shortly.”

Five: “What UNICTRAL can do: bring in accreditation standards for ODR providers and a cross-border enforcement protocol.”

Six: “No difference between low value B2B or B2C claims. Both need transparency, speed and low cost” per Louis Del Duca (President of the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law and has been The United States? collaborator to the Rome International Institute for the Unification of Private Law UNIDROIT).

Seven: “The European Union (EU) has taken on an ‘Optional Instrument’ for ODR which is a regulation binding on the 27 member states. It is in effect a 28th system of law in this 27 state union.”

Eight: “Tribunals deal with far more legal needs than the courts. How can ODR be applied here?” per the Honourable Madam Justice Fran Kiteley.

Nine: “The challenges for ODR: Legal, Cultural, Economic, Technical and Political” per: Mohamed Wahab (Assistant Professor and Legal Counsel at Cairo University).

Ten: “Mobile access and payment methods are key to ODR!” per: Gabriela Szlak (Director of the ODR Regional Program for the Digital Economy at the Latin American eCommerce Institute.)

Doug Leigh (past editor-in-chief the International Society for Performance Improvement’s (ISPI) monthly professional journal, Performance Improvement and a lifetime member of ISPI) will be writing and editing the full conference communique. It will be posted as soon as it is available.

In the meantime I feel like the time has come – it feels like a change…

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on November 04, 2010 (boomark / email).