Zug, 31 March 2021

Jur is pleased to announce the immediate release of the private beta version of the Open Justice Platform, the online dispute resolution platform for civil and commercial claims worldwide, in a legally-binding way. Anyone in the world can apply to get early access to the private beta program starting on the 31st of March 2021.

Apply for the private beta of the Open Justice Platform.

How does it work? 

Offering an UNCITRAL-compliant arbitration procedure, the Open Justice Platform brings an efficient justice process to small-medium enterprises and professionals across 168 jurisdictions worldwide. The UNCITRAL model is an international legal framework that ensures the enforceability of the legal decisions. The activation of each procedure on Jur requires either the previous existence of a compatible arbitration clause or an arbitration agreement done between the parties. As a consequence, the result is binding on the parties being an arbitration award.

Hence, the Open Justice Platform offers a fully digitised flow which helps arbitrators, lawyers and claimants with dispute resolution procedures anywhere in the world. 

Small and medium-sized businesses are able to access a user-friendly arbitration process online. Arbitrators are selected according to their expertise and manage simplified arbitration procedures with an easy-to-use platform that saves precious time and effort.

Digital arbitration chambers

Operators in the legal sector can create “digital arbitration chambers“, also called Hubs, attract dispute cases, and offer administered arbitration procedures that are cost-efficient and qualitative.

The Jur expedited arbitration procedure is built to offer a complete arbitral procedure within a customizable range of 30 to 90 days. A key outcome is considerable savings in the management costs typical of arbitration and an extremely rapid procedure. Testing with partners will commence this month. 

Depending on user configuration, the platform can manage disputes of up to USD 1M. Over time, Jur will integrate the infrastructure with other platforms and blockchain platforms.

In a nutshell

The platform supports every phase of the arbitration procedure from A to Z, including: 

  1. filing of the claim, 
  2. notifications of each action and relevant phase of the procedure 
  3. payment management
  4. definition of terms of reference
  5. case management for the arbitrator and for the hub
  6. presentation of pleading
  7. hearings booking, management and recording
  8. adoption of the award, scrutiny, approval and any corrections of the same

The procedure is entirely online, integrating secure digital signatures and notifications via certified email. The platform allows, in case of need, the management of the award in physical copy and signed by hand.

After testing in a separate environment, the platform will gradually introduce elements of decentralisation and blockchain to provide an enhanced level of transparency, quality and neutrality of the procedure.

From micro-claims on blockchain to a user-friendly justice for small and medium businesses

As per the new white paper, Jur first released a fully decentralised online dispute resolution (ODR) solution, concerning an innovative product in the blockchain field targeting micro-transactions.

The previous product has been tested by a number of institutions, including the prestigious Radboud, Hull and IE universities. 

The Online Justice Platform is part of an industry that sees the rise of digital courts as a way to support the backlog of courts. It is estimated that 70% of businesses experience disputes, and existing resolution methods are notoriously time-consuming and costly, often prohibitively so. The cost of dispute resolution for small-medium enterprises is £11.6Billion each year solely in the UK.

Although technically arbitration, Jur does not compete with institutions currently operating in the traditional, non-online arbitration sector as well. In fact, arbitration procedures involve disputes of USD 10-50M value. Sometimes there can be smaller disputes in the order of USD1-5M. The primary target of Jur’s platform are disputes with values ranging from USD 10K-1M.

There are platforms for supporting arbitration, but they only focus on optimising document management of the arbitral procedures.

Future improvements

Arbitration is a solution mainly used for high-value disputes, which are often international. Still, arbitration faces problems in terms of guaranteeing the quality of the arbitrators, neutrality of the procedure, and ensuring reputable outcomes. 

These problems are now primarily solved thanks to the reputation of particular bodies or arbitrators that work as an element for generating trust. Outside a strict circle of entities and arbitrators, reputation is a concern. 

These are currently existing problems which may only worsen in the case of a scaled digital version of arbitration for smaller disputes. 

The impact of blockchain technology is inevitable everywhere where “trust” is needed.

For this reason, smart-contract based procedures and models are required to solve the aforementioned problems in a better way.

Our roadmap includes elements of decentralisation of part of the procedures in order to define a new standard of transparency, quality, and neutrality of digital justice in general and arbitration in particular.

The approach with which Jur operates is to focus on product-market fit and, in parallel, separately test advanced blockchain-based features. Only after adequate testing will Jur integrate these features into the main product in order to preserve the legally binding character of the procedure itself. This is a new approach for blockchain startups which we believe is the most sustainable one and will bear the best results in the medium and long term.

A brief history of Jur

Jur has recently worked with LawtechUK (UK government’s backed initiative powered by Tech Nation to help transform the UK legal sector) and accelerated by MDR LAB‘s startup program. Jur has been funded in the past by VeChain Foundation, Fenbushi and Rascal Ventures. The new Open Justice Platform is part of Jur’s solutions to foster access to justice and help business and professionals work in a more reliable environment thanks to the digitalisation of traditional procedures. Jur has also released a cryptocurrency, the JUR token, and part of the future releases of the Open Justice Platform features and other products will be based on a blockchain infrastructure, to ensure better security, transparency and reliability. 

Jur. World’s multi-jurisdictional dispute resolution platform for small-medium enterprises. 

More:

We have released the private beta of our online dispute resolution platform, the Open Justice. Learn more.

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Easy Online Justice
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