Ten Things You Wanted to Know about the European ODR Regulation (But Were Too Afraid to Ask?) - Journal of Technology in International Arbitration - Vol. 1, No. 1

Author(s): 

G. Brian Hutchinson

Page Count: 

10 pages

Media Description: 

1 PDF Download

Published: 

June, 2015

Jurisdictions: 

Europe

Practice Areas: 

Contractual or Consensual Basis of Arbitration,

Public Policy Favoring Arbitration,

Online Arbitration,

Specialized Arbitration,

International Character of Dispute,

Institutional and Administered Arbitration,

International and Transnational Law,

Representation and Legal Assistance,

ADR,

Dispute Resolution & Litigation,

UNCITRAL,

UNCITRAL Model Law

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Description: 

Originally from Journal of Technology in International Arbitration

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I. INTRODUCTION

Just over two years ago, on 21 May 2013, the Parliament and

Council of the European Union enacted the “EU ODR Regulation” –

or Regulation (EU) No 524/2013 on online dispute resolution for

consumer disputes, to give it its proper title – with a view giving

consumers confidence in, and the benefit of, e-commerce in the

European internal market. The Regulation proposes to do this by

establishing what it calls an “ODR Platform”, giving access online

“to simple, efficient, fast and low-cost ways of resolving disputes

which arise from the sale of goods or the supply of services

online.”1

 

To some, especially those like myself who have had an interest

in Online Dispute Resolution since the 1990s, the prospect of the

European Union establishing a thing called an ODR Platform sent

ripples of anticipation down the spine. From 2001 I was

privileged to lead the pilot phase of ECODIR – the Electronic

Consumer Dispute Resolution project (www.ecodir.org) – which,

conceived by Prof. Karim Benyekhlef and the Cybertribunal team

at the University of Montreal in Canada, and Prof. Yvves Poullet

and his team at the C.R.I.D at the University of Namur in Belgium,

and with the support of a number of academic and industry

partners from around the world, tested the waters for online

dispute resolution of consumer disputes across borders. Our goal

was to see whether online consumer dispute resolution would

work and how best to make it work; and what barriers, if any,