/English/Expertise/Commercial arbitration
Expertise
Commercial arbitration
There is not much instruction in Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) in Taiwanese legal education, especially for Arbitration. Many attorneys are not familiar with the arbitration, therefore they might not take it into consideration and cause more misspending of time and money in disputes.
/Arbitration benefits/
At the beginning of 2016, due to the burst of the foreign exchange option bubble, a large number of financial investment disputes occurred. Both investors and financial institutions fell into a panic. In the Financial and Economic Law Committee of the Bar Association, our attorney suggested that these cases would be appropriately resolved through arbitration. After receiving support from the Chinese Arbitration Association, Taipei, Enlighten Law Group jointly planned the most suitable arbitration procedures for such cases and held several seminars and briefing sessions.
On account of the mutual effort of all parties, arbitration then became the main approach of dealing with investment disputes and avoided chaos in the market and the spreading of losses.
Compared with litigation, arbitration has the following advantages:
1. Effectiveness:
Generally, arbitration cases will be closed within six months, and financial arbitration can be done within 3 months. On the contrary, litigation takes much longer, and if the losing party repeatedly appeals to a higher court, the result could be procrastinated for a very long while.
2. Confidentiality:
Normally the proceeding is open to the public during the trial, and the verdict is also available on the network. However, arbitration cases and the judgments do not need to be made public, so it is more suitable for confidential cases.
3. Professionalism:
Judges don’t necessarily have adequate expertise in a specific field.
However, during the arbitration process, arbitrators are selected by both parties. Clients can find reliable experts to preside over the arbitration while handling high professional and complex cases.
4. Internationalism:
Courts are highly regional institutions, thus legal judgments can only be based on the law of a given country, and judges may not be familiar with foreign languages. In Taiwan, even it’s international lawsuits, all documents (including the evidence) must be translated into Chinese to be used in court.
However, if it’s arbitration, documents in a foreign language can be allowed, the most advanced and recent legal interpretations of all countries can be used, and even arbitrators can be chosen from different countries.
/Procedures and qualification/
Generally, courts assigned judges to hear cases, and the parties are not allowed to choose another one. In arbitration proceedings, arbitrators are selected by both parties to form a tribunal. It is usually composed of three people, but there is only one arbitrator in some cases.
Arbitration in large public construction may consist of five people, and they will choose the chief arbitrator. The process is similar to the litigation in courts, starting from evidence presenting, then the attack and defense, and finally, the arbitrators will reach an agreement through discussion.
Many cases can be solved either through arbitration or litigation. In this situation, lawyers need to be acquainted with the slight differences between both systems and procedures, so that they can make accurate decisions.
Arbitrators do not have to be lawyers, but they are usually respected and acknowledged in a particular specialization. They need to be good at foreign languages, mostly English and know differences between transnational legal systems. Arbitrators need credibility in terms of quality and impartiality, they should scrupulously abide by ethical norms and cannot have any interest in both parties.
In mainland China, there is a large number of commercial disputes, which are highly professional and may scatter over multiple countries. Therefore, arbitration has become a more reliable resolution.
In order to facilitate the search for suitable arbitrators for business organizations, the Chinese International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) has designated qualified figures in the business and trade fields. Overall 1,200 persons were listed, among which only 24 were Taiwanese. Enlighten Law Group’s managing partner, Kunchou Tsai, Esq was nominated in May 2017. He is not only one of the youngest professionals from Taiwan, but one of a few arbitrators appointed for financial expertise.
No matter it’s legal consultant or arbitrator in financial and trade disputes, our attorneys have extensive experience and knowledge in arbitration cases.
/English/Expertise/Commercial arbitration
