Reconciliation panels big success
Tue, 28 August 2012
MUSCAT -- Statistics show that reconciliation panels at Omani courts succeeded in resolving 80 per cent of civil and commercial disputes during the past few years outside courts, and this shows the great need for this type of arbitration. After the issuance of Royal Decree No 47/97 promulgating the Law on Arbitration in Civil and Commercial Disputes, the Council of Ministers approved resorting for arbitration to the GCC Commercial Arbitration Centre.
Despite the efforts of the centre to resolve commercial disputes, many other disputes among companies operating in the Sultanate reached, holding in limbo compensations worth scores of millions of dollars. The problem becomes more serious when international companies insist on resolving disputes via foreign arbitration centres, whose judgment, in most cases, goes against the interests of Omani companies. An example of this was the dispute between National Beverage Company and 7-Up Company international which enforced arbitrary termination on its agency in Oman.
Last May, Oman Foodstuff International Company announced that its dispute with the Public Authority for Stores and Food Reserve has been resolved via normal arbitration. Meanwhile, the cases of many other companies which resorted to commercial arbitration in the local courts in the Sultanate took a long time and developed into appeals and dissatisfaction with promises of more litigation.
© Oman Daily Observer 2012
