Consultation Paper on Alternative Dispute Resolution - Law Reform ...

written procedure but the Court may decide to hold an oral hearing if it
considers it necessary or if the parties request it. 74 If one of the parties to the
dispute requests an oral hearing this can also be refused by the Court if they
feel it is not necessary. The claim form and supporting documents must be
submitted to the court in the language/s acceptable to the particular Member
State.
8.43 The unsuccessful party will bear the cost of the proceedings, as
determined by the court. 75 The decision of the court can be appealed and
information on appealing a decision will be made public by the Commission
once available. 76
E Online Dispute Resolution of Consumer Disputes
8.44 In response to the growth of the online marketplace in particular,
methods for allowing the resolution of disputes to themselves take place on the
Internet have been developed. Online dispute resolution (ODR) has been
identified as a fundamental aspect of consumer protection, as litigation and the
common forms of alternative dispute resolution do not meet the needs of
customers, predominantly because of distances in transborder cases and
disproportionate costs. 77 The principal types of dispute resolution mechanisms
currently offered online are automated negotiation, 78 assisted negotiation, 79
74 Article 5 of the 2007 Regulation.
75 Article 16 of the 2007 Regulation.
76 Article 17 of the 2007 Regulation.
77 Final Report: An analysis and evaluation of alternative means of consumer
redress other than redress through ordinary judicial proceedings - A Study for the
European Commission (The Study Centre for Consumer Law – Centre for
European Economic Law, Belgium, 2007) at 87.
78 Automated negotiation involves the parties entering a ―blind bidding‖ procedure
whereby they each, in turn, offer or demand an amount of money. When the
amounts of the offer and the demand are sufficiently close, the case is settled for
the arithmetic mean of the two figures. Cybersettle is the leading company in this
field. See www.cybersettle.com
79 Assisted negotiation involves the ODR institution providing the parties with a
secure site on which to communicate. As is the case with traditional negotiation,
the parties must reach an agreement themselves with no third party having the
capacity to decide for them. A good example of an assisted negotiation platform
is ECODIR.
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