Resolving commercial disputes speedily

There is no alternative to massive investment for either attaining higher growth in Gross Domestic Product or achieving the middle-income status of the country by 2021. But in any investment, like other fields of competitive economic activities, legal disputes might crop up, complicating the investment scenario or discouraging such investment due to legal procrastination in its resolution. Investors suffer immensely in terms of making gains out of their hard-earned investment money or carrying out their normal business activities. In Bangladesh's case, there is an abject lack of legal mechanisms or even capacity building to handle such disputes effectively. As a result, higher courts are becoming overburdened with business-related litigations taking years and even decades to resolve those. And of late, it has affected the commercial services sector seriously, as reported in the FE on Saturday.

As the report disclosed, there has been no foreign direct investment in the country's commercial services sector in the last two years over legal disputes.  There are such disputes galore in the fields like freight forwarding and logistic service, shipping agency, airlines GSA, distribution and travel agency. Both local and foreign investors are now indecisive in such a situation. Many foreign investors had approached local firms and offered to make investments in the local commercial service sector. But, unfortunately, they could not but refuse to accept their proposals because of the legal disputes lying pending with the courts for long. Some of the industry insiders have already appealed to the authorities concerned to take necessary steps to immediately settle legal disputes, no matter whether the court's decision goes against or in favour--partially or fully--of foreign investment.

As there has been no capacity building in terms of settling commercial disputes yet, setting up of the Bangladesh International Arbitration Centre (BIAC) is indeed a right move. It has been set up by three leading business chambers-the International Chamber of Commerce, Bangladesh, Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry-and supported by International Finance Corporation. Such an arbitration centre needs to be given adequate legal powers to deal effectively with commercial complaints. With the growth of businesses, mediation will continue to evolve in Bangladesh due to its cost effectiveness. The courts here, like in many other countries, are already over-burdened. There are as many as 2.4 million cases pending, of which roughly 1 million are civil cases.

Alternative dispute resolutions are widely practised around the globe to settle commercial disputes as these are less expensive, expeditious and confidential.  The utility of the tools depends largely on their users and in a modern functional society, the dispute resolution system should have methods in place that change with the changing needs of society. Happily, the BIAC has shaped itself as the country's first alternate dispute resolution service provider under the dynamic leadership of an expert who has vast knowledge of international trade and business rules.

The BIAC is one of the significant outcomes of the business community's endeavours to create a commerce-friendly enabling environment in the country. A business veteran now heads the BIAC Council as its chairman. The government, through enactment of new laws, will do the needful if it empowers the BIAC legally to deal with many commercial disputes using its expertise. The centre also could be mandated to create experts on commercial laws so that disputes could be resolved to the satisfaction of both the parties.  Involvement of the leading chambers with the centre will go a long way in creating confidence among the litigants for amicable resolution of commercial disputes.