Arbitration center to resolve 52,000 disputes

ISTANBUL

The Istanbul Arbitration Center (İSTAC), which recently launched an innovative Mediation-Arbitration model, targets to resolve nearly 52,000 commercial disputes out of court.

İSTAC chairman Ziya Akıncı said that the center has started to offer an alternative procedure combining characteristics of both mediation and arbitration and that this innovative method will help businesses avoid long, time-consuming court processes.

Akıncı reminded that İSTAC in November announced its rules governing its Mediation-Arbitration (Med-Arb) Dispute Resolution Model, a first of its kind in the world.

“Putting the Med-Arb model into practice marked a turning point for İSTAC, serving as a springboard for the center to become an important player in the international arena,” Akıncı told reporters in Istanbul.

For his part, Hakan Öztatar, İSTAC board member, noted that there are 10,300 mediators in Turkey.

“More and more people are resorting to courts as awareness among people to claim their rights increases. But traditional court process may last way too long. In Turkey at courts of first instance proceedings last on average 541 days…and add this the appeal process; proceedings could last as long as 1,000 days,” Öztatar said, adding that the mediation mechanism, however, is increasingly gaining a foothold in Turkey.

He noted that the center resolved most of the disputes referred to İSTAC within eight weeks.

Öztatar reminded that mandatory arbitration in commercial disputes was introduced this year, and around 137,000 cases have been referred to arbitration.

Some 57 percent of those disputes have been resolved through arbitration, he said.

“We target to resolve the remaining 43 percent, or 51,988 cases, at İSTAC. Businesspeople will see that commercial disputes will definitely be resolved at most within five months through our innovative arbitration system,” Öztatar added.