Topic Of discussion: Do You Believe ADR is an effective dispute resolution process for

commercial and business related conflicts in Bangladesh? Discuss your argument with relevant
law.

ADR: Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is a collection of processes used for the purpose of
resolving conflict or disputes informally and confidentially. Businesses can derive benefit from
alternative dispute resolution methods, particularly mediation, which is already available in the
country, to resolve commercial and investment disputes. Mediation can be especially a good
alternative to the costly and time-consuming judicial process. Though business communities
around the world are increasingly adopting alternative means to resolving conflict, as
conventional routes are blamed to be costlier and time-consuming. The courts in Bangladesh,
like in many other countries, are over-burdened. There are as many as 2.4 million cases
pending, of which roughly one million are civil cases, according to BIAC.
Argument: Businesses are nowadays selecting ADR as the alternative of court system. When
parties can realize that the dispute cannot be resolved through mediation they may go for
signing contract to resolve the matter through arbitration.
Mediation is the highly growing ADR method and mediation creates an independent forum
where parties can resolve their own dispute without having formal litigation. To conduct
mediation, a third party is required. In the court, each step of proceeding leads to the next step.
Businesses frequently discover themselves resolving cases at court very costly and emotionally
stressful.

Benefits Of ADR in short

Minimize Resolve Maintain Maintain Get Set

Costs Quickly Privacy Relationship neutral Precedent
Opinion

When any employee makes claim against his or her employer, it is often an attention of both
parties to try to resolve the dispute as early as possible through the mediation process. With
the help of an expert neutral third party they resolve their dispute with less cost, limited time
and without having tension of court litigation.
A customer can bring any complaint against any business or their product. Again, it is
recommended to resolve the dispute through ADR mediation process rather than going to court
for formal litigation. If a customer sues any company in the court, it takes years to resolve the
matter. Both the parties incur losses. For the company, it is the loss of its reputation and for the
customer this is timely process and costly. Arbitration is the process of settling a dispute with
the help of a panel of arbitrators who act as judges. For example, if any trade union decides to
strike because it is not happy with the decision of its employer, then it may agree to have an
independent arbitrator panel to consider the situation and deliver a decision. Arbitration can
also be used to resolve a personal dispute such as employer-employee, it's faster and less
formal than a traditional Employment Tribunal.
Parties involved in dispute of supplying goods and services that they are unable to settle
through negotiation, may wish to consider using an arbitration process. According to the
European Commission's summary of consultation responses, commercial transaction dispute
should be resolved through ADR. It suggested that ADR should be a means to resolve dispute
with traders.
ADR is far effective and rational process than formal court system. The main advantage of ADR
is that people can solve their own problem. They may be awarded compensation; the process is
less formal than going to a court and the procedure is confidential. If businesses and individuals
use ADR process to resolve their regular problem, then the work pressure on formal court will
be less. So people should use ADR scheme.
Relevant Laws:
Bangladesh has promulgated the following acts for the effective application of ADR procedure
for dispensing the disputes outside the court:

(a) The Arbitration Act 2001 (Act no I of 2001)

(b) Insertion section89A, 89B and 89C in the CPC as the mechanism of ADR to dispose the
pending civil cases which have laying without any decision for long period of time.

(c) Arthorin Adalat Ain, 2003

(d) Bangladesh Labour Law, 2006

(e) Family Court Ordinance, 1985

(f) Act for Dispute Resolution of municipal area.