The development of the use of ADR in Brazil is impressive. As a court decision takes around 5 to 10 years, companies have been opting for arbitration to resolve their conflicts, so the volume of cases reached 20 billion Brazilian reals in 2016 (roughly 6 billion USD). Gradually the consensual procedures, such as mediation and dispute boards also begin to be part of the routine of companies, boosted by the Mediation Law 13.140 enacted in 2015, whose third anniversary comes next June.
The development of consensual procedures in public administration is also now well-known:
a) Recently São Paulo Municipal Law No. 16.873, of February 22, 2018, established the Committees for Prevention and Resolution of Disputes in continuing administrative contracts executed by the City of São Paulo;
b) The National Petroleum Agency (ANP), a federal agency responsible for implementing the national policy for the oil and gas sector, included a mediation clause in the standard oil exploration and production contracts;
c) Petrobras, a state company, under the control of the Federal Government, included in its new Tender and Contracts Regulation (RLCP) the use of private dispute resolution mechanisms, including mediation (arbitration was already admitted), to resolve disputes arising from their contracts.
Petrobras’ board recently approved the terms of an extra-court agreement between Petrobras and local rig-chartering entity Sete Brasil in a mediation proceeding, resolving serious issues such as the cancellation and maintenance of rigs charter and operation contracts and the exit of Petrobras and its subsidiaries from the board of Sete Brasil group, among other matters.
The path to conflict resolution by appropriate methods seems to be no longer around, and the tendency is for mediation to gain more and more supporters since the procedure is faster and less costly for parties than arbitration.
Aware of this movement, Findresolution, a conflict prevention and resolution company, is organizing two events dealing with mediation in the oil and gas sector. The first on March 21, when Julia Mota, the oil and gas specialist in Findresolution’s team, will interview Armando Cavanha, an industry expert, who will approach the design of the oil and gas production sequence, which includes suppliers mapping, their characteristics, methods of procurement and market relations, from the point of view of conflict prevention and resolutions. The second event will be a 3 hours workshop, on April 5, led by Armando Cavanha and Julia Mota, in which the same theme will be dealt with more deeply in the first module, and, in the second module, they will discuss mediation, dispute boards, systems design, and finally a simulation of a mediation of a case related to the oil sector will be organized.
Source: findresolution.com.br
