The Gazprom Arbitration Court continues developing the electronic arbitration system. Today the Arbitration Court considered several cases using secure electronic document exchange at all stages of arbitration proceedings. The Court also applied the electronic and digital signature software.

During the meeting held in the videoconference format representatives of both parties and the Arbitrators were also offered the opportunity to produce the documents via a digital visualizer enabling the trial participants to get acquainted with these documents from the screens of the monitors.

“Evolvement of the electronic arbitration system makes it possible to apply the latest telecommunications and information solutions thus considerably raising the Gazprom Arbitration Court performance,” said Nikolai Dubik, Member of the Management Committee, Head of the Legal Department of Gazprom.

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.

On December 21, 2010 the Gazprom Arbitration Court held for the first time in the history of Russian arbitration courts a remote arbitration court meeting with the use of the said 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. By now, 19 cases have been considered in the videoconference format.

During the arbitration assisted by this technology 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 secure electronic document exchange is an integral part of the electronic arbitration system. The parties present all records of the court (statement of claim, statement of defense, case evidences) in the electronic form to the Arbitration Court. At the same time, resolution of disputes is held in the videoconference format.

The Arbitration Court of Gazprom was set up in 1993 pursuant to the Gazprom Charter for the purpose of settling economic disputes among the Company 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.

The Gazprom Arbitrators are well-known lawyers and reputed legislators – Russian experts.