Online Dispute Resolution: Key To Ease Of Doing Business

In today’s age of data-driven solutions and machine learning, Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) provides the potential to resolve a substantial percentage of disputes at the site of their occurrence without burdening the courts, said Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog while addressing a conversation hosted by NITI Aayog in association with Agami and Omidyar Network India and co-hosted by CII with legal firms’ heads and various representatives of industry.

ODR is the resolution of disputes by using digital technology Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) techniques, such as negotiation, mediation, and arbitration.  Shilpa Kumar, Partner, Investments, Omidyar Network India, said, “LegalTech in general and ODR, in particular, can be a game-changer for citizens as well as Indian businesses, particularly MSMEs. It can help reduce the cost of dispute resolution in the face of rising cases and disputes, besides allowing citizens and consumers to raise any grievances they may have at the click of a button and have an independent third-party firm review.”

Sanjiv Bajaj, Vice President, CII, and CMD, Bajaj Finance added that ODR has extensive application and it can be used to resolve a wide variety of commercial disputes. Ease of Doing business has been a priority area of the government for combating deceleration in the growth of GDP and investment. As a part of this, we need to focus on improving the enforcing contracts mechanism in India through innovative methods like ODR.

Justice B. N Srikrishna, former Supreme Court Justice, said ODR can help deliver justice to the doorstep of the litigant and it will prevent a large number of litigations that clutter the courts.

Cyril Shroff, Managing Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas added, “We must use this opportunity to actually reimagine dispute resolution and conflict resolution for the future and post the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *