The Gazprom Arbitration Court is adopting an electronic arbitration system. Today in the Gazprom headquarters the Arbitration Court set up within the Company considered several cases in the videoconference format. This is the first experience of an arbitration court meeting in Russia held remotely with the use of this technology. The disputing parties were sitting in the rooms located in two different Russian cities and the court was trying the case from in the central room in Moscow.

“Electronic arbitration stipulates proceedings in the videoconference format with a gradual transfer to electronic document exchange. Utilization of telecommunication technologies materially speeds up the trial of cases by the Arbitration Court and minimizes expenses associated with the trial. The videoconference system simplifies the communication process and interaction of all the proceeding participants and making the trial process more accessible and transparent for the parties,” said Nikolai Dubik, Member of the Management Committee, Head of the Legal Department of Gazprom and Chairman of the Arbitration Court Presidium.

Background:

Between 2009 and 2010 changes were made in the procedural legislation at the initiative of the Russian Federation Supreme Court and the Russian Federation Supreme Arbitration Court. These changes enable the use of videoconferences during a trial process.

During the arbitration held in the videoconference format confidentiality is secured through the use of Gazprom's videoconferencing network. A party that has no access to Gazprom's communications network may participate in a trial while staying in a videoconferencing room of the Arbitration Court or one of Gazprom's subsidiaries in case an appropriate agreement is signed.

The Arbitration Court of Gazprom was set up in 1993 pursuant to the RAO Gazprom Charter for the purpose of settling economic disputes among the Company's subsidiaries. The main objective behind creating the Arbitration Court was to assure prompt and uniform consideration of economic disputes taking into account the gas industry specifics.