General Electric senior counsel to deliver the 2008 Annual International Arbitration Lecture

Sydney, 6 November 2008: International commercial arbitration needs to go 'back to basics' if it is to become a preferred method of resolving business disputes. That is the view of prominent international arbitration lawyer and advocate Jean-Claude Najar[1], who will deliver the 2008 Annual International Arbitration Lecture in Sydney this evening, co-sponsored by Clayton Utz and the University of Sydney.

Mr Najar, senior counsel and chief compliance officer Europe, Middle East and Africa for General Electric, said companies were increasingly turning to other forms of alternative dispute resolution because international commercial arbitration had become "too costly, too slow, too complicated [and] too sophisticated".

"Arbitration is becoming increasingly like national court litigation in terms of expense and delay. In an increasingly transparent world with unprecedented flows of information, it needs to be more transparent," he said.

Mr Najar said the users of arbitration - inclusing parties and lawyers - needed to work together to address the issues that were preventing arbitration from becoming a dispute resolution tool of choice. In particular, in-house counsel at companies that were or could be users of arbitration should become more involved in the process.

"A significant number of corporate counsel are of the view that arbitration is not fulfilling the basic needs of business customers for early and efficient resolution of disputes," he said. "Arbitration is what the parties make of it. That's where involvement by in-house counsel in shaping rules governing arbitrations and arbitration procedures is essential, to make them more user-friendly, more efficient and more adapted to the needs of the companies."

The head of Clayton Utz' international arbitration practice, Doug Jones AM, said he was pleased to welcome Jean-Claude to Australia to deliver this year's Lecture.

"Jean-Claude has extensive experience in international arbitration and is able to give a true user's insight into the barriers to arbitration becoming a preferred dispute resolution method. Hopefully his insights will encourage those with an interest in arbitration to look at ways they can get involved in reshaping the arbitration process so it delivers the outcomes for which it was intended," Mr Jones said.

Mr Najar will deliver the 2008 Annual International Arbitration lecture in the Banco Court of the Supreme Court of NSW today, starting at 5.15pm.

[1] Jean-Claude Najar has extensive arbitration experience, both as a law firm practitioner and then as in-house counsel. He is the founder and current Chairman of the Corporate Counsel International Arbitration Group (CCIAG), which has been hailed as 'the users' voice' in arbitration and has been granted observer status at the UNCITRAL II Working Group for the revision of the UNCITRAL. Jean-Claude is also a former Vice-President of the LCIA Court , and the immediate past Senior Chair of the IBA's Corporate Counsel Forum.