EU: New legislation on Alternative and Online Dispute Resolution

On 12 March 2013, the European Parliament voted to support the new legislation on Alternative Dispute Resolution and Online Dispute Resolution. The vote confirms the political agreement reached in December 2012 on the two legislative proposals put forward by the European Commission in 2011. The new legislation will now soon be adopted. The rules on ADR will ensure that consumers can turn to quality alternative dispute resolution entities for all kinds of contractual disputes that they have with traders; no matter what they purchased and whether they purchased it online or offline, domestically or across borders. According to the ODR Regulation, an EU-wide online platform will be set up for handling consumer disputes that arise from online transactions. The platform will link all the national alternative dispute resolution entities and operate in all official EU languages. Member States will have two years to implement the ADR/ODR rules. The ODR platform will be operational at the end of 2015.Source: EU Commission Memo 13/192 of March 12, 2013

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