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| Tuesday, 6 July 2004 |
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Promote Lanka's Arbitration Law to woo more investors - Kadirgamar by Shirajiv Sirimane
Sri Lanka's Arbitration Law should be actively promoted as it would attract more investors said the Minister of Foreign Affairs Lakshman Kadirgamar. He was speaking at the seventh breakfast meeting organised by the Institute for the Development of Commercial Law and Practice at the Taj Samudra last week. The Minister said that foreign investors are sensitive to this issue and if a government does not handle an issue properly and if foreign investors are being let down, it can have a severe adverse effect on foreign investments. "Similarly if the government settles these issues it would be a plus point for future investments," he said. The Minister said that commercial disputes should be identified soon and the two concerned parties must forget their ego and try to settle them practically. Sri Lanka's legal structure too is not fully geared for this, as there are no lawyers working full time on arbitration. He said that this is because they do not have litigation daily. Countries have remodelled their arbitration laws in the light of the UN Model. Sri Lanka is one of them. He said that China from 1979 has had mock courts and have trained their lawyers before opening their economy to the world market. Secretary General Arbitration Centre, S. S. Wijeratne said that the law on arbitration was effective in Sri Lank since 1996. Sri Lanka was one of the first countries in Asia to set up a centre. "India took the Sri Lankan example and the Centre is being sponsored by ten bluechip companies with Rs. one million sponsorship each," he said. All national and international business transactions start with high hopes for smooth and trouble free implementation. This, however, does not always prove to be the way things unfold. Accordingly, smart and experienced business people and their legal advisors carefully prepare their business contracts which usually involves a well thought out provision as to how a dispute could be dealt with, should one arise. For good reason, the mechanism increasingly favoured is arbitration. With its flexible, less formal procedures and an emphasis on confidentiality, speed and reduction of costs, arbitration is the smart solution for business dispute resolution. In Sri Lanka, the ICLP Arbitration Centre with its thoroughly modern and user friendly Arbitration Rules clearly stands out. The ICLP Arbitration Centre which was set up in March 1996, is a separate body of the Institute for the Development of Commercial Law and Practice (ICLP) which is a corporate body established in 1992, under the Companies Act No. 17 of 1982 of Sri Lanka. The ICLP is a non-profit organisation funded by some of the leading private sector Companies in Sri Lanka and was incorporated inter alia to assist the Government to create and develop the infrastructure for Sri Lanka through a market economy. Among its primary objectives were the advancement of Commercial Law, its administration and practice, imparting knowledge and diffusion of information thereon, and establishing and operating an arbitration centre of international standards to resolve commercial disputes. |
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