STCCI, Hamburg Chamber of Commerce set up ADR Centre

From Alfred Adams
The Hamburg Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with the Sekondi Takoradi Chamber of Commerce (STCC) is organising a 10-day Alternative Dispute Resolution Seminar (ADR) for members of the business community.
The training exercise, which is an initiative of the STCC, would see an ADR expert from Hamburg school the business community on the importance to opt for ADR instead of litigation in court.
The leader, Attorney Dr. Chris Hasche, led his team to pay a courtesy call on the Supervising High Court Judge in Sekondi.
The Mediation Centre under Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) was set up by the STCC for its members, as well as the business community, on commercial disputes.
The Centre is to help solve some of the cases that businesses go through with their partners, and to reach an understanding, instead of resorting to court, which takes a longer time.
“Mediation can take as little as one hour to a few weeks for complete resolution. An average of 14 days is used to resolve mediation disputes,” Mr. Vincent Annan, Executive Chief Executive Officer of the Sekondi-Takoradi Chamber, disclosed this in an interview.
He said ADR mechanisms are completely voluntary and must be agreed by both parties, except in a few cases when it is ordered by court or any other body.
He explained that in the case of the STCC, the focus of ADR as a service will be on Business/Commercial Disputes, compared to the courts processes; – ADR mechanisms allow for complete confidentiality of proceedings, to the extent that any matter discussed in an ADR session cannot be used or admitted in court.
He added that parties are, therefore, able to open up and share their most inherent concerns, leading to the speedy and amicable resolution of disputes.
‘With mediation, under ADR Chambers of Commerce, provides a simple, fast, cost-effective and flexible procedure, providing individuals and businesses a framework for negotiating a settlement of their commercial dispute, with the assistance of an independent neutral, usually referred to as a Mediator, under the International Chamber of Commerce.
He noted that in Ghana, the use of ADR in solving disputes could be traced to the pre-colonial days, where the extended family systems, as well as chieftaincy or palace regulations, were used to resolve conflict in our communities. Today, ADR is gaining popularity as the most affordable means of resolving disputes especially in business.
Across the world, settling business disputes through ADR have, therefore, become one of the leading functions of Chambers of Commerce & Industry, and as such, the STCC, after participating in a series of sensitisation programmes on the importance of ADR, as well as the uncountable incidents of dispute between its members, has decided to work together with the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and the Judicial Service of Ghana to introduce ADR as a medium of achieving amicable settlements on business disputes,” he said.
According to Mr. Annan, ADR may be classified into various areas of practice, such as commercial, labour, community, domestic, court-connected or court annexed, environmental and oil and gas among others.