On 6 October 2008 the research-to-practice conference “Commercial Dispute Resolution. Mediation and Arbitration Courts” was held in Moscow. The conference was sponsored by EPAM and attended by more than 50 experts in commercial dispute resolution. Grigory Chernyshov, a Partner leading the Litigation Practice Department at EPAM, took part in the event.

The conference targeted legal aspects of mediation, approaches of incorporation of mediation and other alternative dispute resolution approaches in the arbitration process offered by arbitration judges and arbitrators. The conference included reports from Alexander Komarov, the Chairman of the international Commercial Arbitration Court of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, delegates form the Association of Lawyers of the Russian Federation, Justices of the Russian Supreme Arbitration Court and judges of the Moscow Arbitration Court, experts of the Center of Mediation and Law and partners of leading law firms.

Grigory Chernyshov, a Partner at EPAM leading the Litigation Practice Department ,gave a presentation on “Roots of Prevailing of the Official Courts in Commercial Dispute Resolution”.

“Today official courts are being heavily criticized”, Grigory Chernyshov concluded, “However, Russian businessmen facing a commercial dispute go to the court and are still unable to find an alternative technique to resolve their controversies”.

According to Grigory Chernyshov, mediation is currently little known in the business community, as it lacks a legal basis and is far from being an efficient form of dispute settlement. He quoted real cases covering a number of legal, psychological and informative reasons for the arbitration courts to be preferred by business.

Grigory stated that the key motives for prevailing of the arbitration courts over the mediation is a prompt, simple, and inexpensive access to the arbitration courts. Furthermore, consistency of the case law in many key aspects and an efficient set of injunctions contribute to the trend of resolution of commercial disputes in Russia by the arbitration courts.

Grigory’s presentation aroused genuine interest from the experts in commercial dispute resolution.

EPAM acted as the general sponsor of the conference, which was organized by the Russian subsidiary of international group Wolters Kluwer and Scientific and Methodological Center for Mediation and Law.