Qatar to widen civil dispute net

DOHA // Qatar is making a bold move into the regional legal scene with its own specialist court for civil disputes. The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) Judiciary is busy building its first court room in a tower in the capital, due to be finished next month.
Judges on the new court roster include: Lord Woolf, formerly the lord chief justice of England and Wales; Lord Cullen, formerly the lord justice general and the lord president of the court of session in Scotland; and Justice Aziz Ahmadi, formerly the chief justice of India.
But unlike its peer in the UAE, which has the most established track record for cases in the Gulf, the QFC Judiciary hopes to become a dispute resolution centre for companies not necessarily based in Qatar. "A key difference for us is our jurisdiction," said Robert Musgrove, the recently appointed chief executive of the Qatar Civil and Commercial Court. Mr Musgrove was previously the head of the civil justice council for England and Wales.
"We are structured to hear cases between QFC companies but we also could hear a case between a Somalian company and a New Zealand company who contracted to build a bridge in Kenya if they wrote us into their contract. The latter is our wider aspiration," he said.
A specialist civil court with a broader jurisdiction would be welcomed by regional companies and lawyers as it would allow firms dealing with local companies to ensure any disputes are dealt with in the same way as in their home countries, said Jim Delkounis, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper. "There is a growing recognition of how important it is to provide investors doing business in the region with a system of law, practice and procedure that they are familiar with," Mr Delkounis said.
"Once you have that, it promotes commerce." He said Qatar's move to broaden its jurisdiction compared with its peers was an "interesting development" that was in line with the needs of companies working in the region. Another distinguishing feature of the QFC Judiciary's courts is that cases can be heard in Arabic if the parties decide it is the best way to proceed. A translation booth is being included in the new court.
Wider jurisdiction is also on the radar of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts. In February, then chief justice of the DIFC Courts Sir Anthony Evans said he would like the DIFC's jurisdiction to extend beyond the financial centre to allow it to handle specific cases involving banking, shipping and financial services.
Mark Beer, the registrar of the DIFC Courts, said Dubai could well follow Qatar's example. "With the proven track record of the DIFC Courts to resolve English-language disputes, it is unsurprising that Qatar has adopted a broader and more accessible jurisdiction for the more recently established QFC Courts," Mr Beer said. "Should the Government of Dubai broaden our jurisdiction in the same way, the DIFC Courts have the infrastructure and expertise to accommodate a similar remit."
In the past few years there has been a build-up of specialist dispute resolution centres and courts in the GCC. Aside from the DIFC Courts, which has resolved more than 300 cases since its inception in 2005, there is the DIFC LCIA Arbitration Centre and the Bahrain Chamber of Dispute Resolution (BCDR-AAA) in association with the American Arbitration Association in Manama. James MacPherson, the chief executive of the BCDR-AAA, said foreign investors "want the infrastructure they can get elsewhere".
Mr MacPherson said jurisdiction was a crucial distinguishing factor when companies were choosing different courts, tribunals or arbitration centres to deal with disputes.
The BCDR-AAA is set up within an "arbitration free zone" so parties can opt to have their dispute resolved at a venue outside the legislative authority of the Bahraini courts. This way, there can be no appeal in the local court.
So far, it has had 10 cases worth a total of US$500 million (Dh1.83 billion).
bhope@thenational.ae