April 12, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 23, 1428

KARACHI, April 11: The Karachi Centre for Dispute Resolution (KCDR), after coming into operation in February this year, has, so far, settled three commercial cases out of 12 presented before them for mediation.

This was disclosed by Ms Navin Merchant, programme manager of International Finance Corporation (IFC) for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), in a meeting held with members of the Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (Unisame) on Wednesday at the KCDR office.

The KCDR is a pilot project set up with the assistance of IFC after getting approval from the High Court of Sindh.

It has started to work as a mediation forum for commercial cases as an alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

Ms Navin, who was assisted by Azhar Rauf, IFC project officer for Pakistan, said foreign consultants were imparting training to mediators and out of total 54 trainees, the KCDR is presently hiring the services of 19.

She hoped that after getting trained master, the KCDR would further carry out the training of mediators so that the centre would meet the growing demand for mediation which is unlike arbitration which could be challenged in the court of law.

Any agreement reached between the parties through mediation is with the consent of both the sides, therefore, question of challenging the matter in the court of law does not arise.

However, she said the agreement document could be registered with the court of law and it would be a legal binding upon both the parties who sought mediation. She said there was a provision in the law for mediation and the judiciary has welcomed the setting up of an institution, such as KCDR for resolving commercial cases out of the court.

Zulfikar Thaver, president Unisame, speaking on the occasion, said this forum would be more beneficial for small and medium sized commercial and industrial establishments which cannot afford to enter into litigation requiring high cost and time for getting award.

The mediation will help SMEs to get their disputes resolved in a short time with less cost and it would also help reduce burden of judiciary. There were many interesting questions put forward by the members of Unisame and one of the participants, representing SME farmers Mohammad Saeed, suggested that matters relating to growers should also be taken up by the KCDR.

He said time and again it had been stated that agriculture is the back-bone of the economy, but no due attention is given to resolve their disputes and issues.