Media

Dispute Resolution

The Australian 28 September 2007
By Chris Merritt

CALL this an example of the market at work: while courts sit and wait for disputes to come to them, the private dispute resolution industry has decided to turn this approach on its head.

The Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia looked around for the part of the economy where there was most need for its services.

It surveyed the information and communications technology sector and found that it was screaming out for a little alternative dispute resolution. Of 1200 contracts covered by the survey, almost half resulted in some sort of dispute, ranging in value from $50,000 to $500,000.

That amount of disruption to commercial relations is no good for anyone, so yesterday, Communications and IT Minister Helen Coonan obliged the institute by launching that organisation's strategy to keep those disputes out of court. It's not that long ago that lawyers were subject to widespread criticism for drumming up disputes in order to get into court. It's delightful to see that the same commercial drive is now being applied to keeping disputes out of court.

We gratefully acknowledge the permission from Chris Merritt at The Australian to reprint this article.