Global group pushes for mediation on Y2K

[John Walker <jwalker@networx.on.ca>]

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Global group pushes for mediation on Y2K

By Erich Luening
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
December 16, 1998, 6:10 a.m. PT
URL: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,29987,00.html

Keeping in the peaceful holiday spirit, a multinational group of
legal organizations have sparked a drive to get corporations to limit
Y2K disputes by settling out of court through mediation.

These legal bodies in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia,
Singapore, and Hong Kong have recently teamed up to form an
initiative called the Millennium Accord, which is a set of principals
and procedures for resolving Y2K grievances between companies and
their customers or business partners.

Similar efforts are being carried out all over the world as
companies try to avoid paying hefty court costs relating to Y2K
litigation. Some estimates pin the cost of litigation surrounding the
Year 2000 technology glitch as high as $1 trillion.

"Y2K disputes are expected to create a flood of litigation across
every business sector," center officials said in a statement. "Many
of them are expected to be cross border," or include parties from
different nations.

The Accord is designed to enable companies to avoid expensive and
time-consuming litigation over Y2K issues through the use of
alternative dispute resolution (ADR), according to the Singapore
Mediation Center (SMC), one of the five organizations involved.

The members of the initiative are the U.K.'s Center for Dispute
Resolution, the Hong Kong International Arbitration Center,
Australia and New Zealand-based group Lawyers Engaged in Alternative
Dispute Resolution (LEADR), and U.S.-based leading ADR group
JAMS/Endispute.

Each organization will work to attract support from organizations in
the public and private sectors in each respective country to become
"Accord Signatories" of the Declaration of Support for the Accord
Principles, which indicates an intention to take a problem-solving
approach and follow a set plan laid out by the accord to contain
conflicts and work towards amicable settlements.

"The disputants work together, if necessary, with the help of a
neutral third party…to find a mutually acceptable solution to their
problems," according to a statement by the Singapore Mediation
Center. "Such methods are cheaper and faster than litigation or
arbitration."

According to Singapore Mediation Center data, at the end of
November, more than 330 cases were referred to it for mediation. The
average settlement rate was about 80 percent, with the majority of
the disputes being settled within a day.

---------------


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_/        John S. Walker                                  _/
_/        Publisher, CSS Internet News (tm)               _/
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