Chamber gives staff opportunity to attend conference

Business

By LEMACH LAVARI
Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry has selected two of its members to attend the first-ever International Arbitration in the South Pacific conference in Fiji.
Chamber president Rio Fiocco told The National the conference would discuss the positive development impact of international arbitration reform in the South Pacific.
The chamber selected lawyers Maryanne Tusais from Dentons and Goiye Gileng from Possman Kua Aisi firms.
Gileng said arbitration was a dispute-solving method in which two parties agreed to have their dispute settled by a third party and not the court.
This agreement is normally part of contracts between international companies and individuals or governments.
Gileng said in court there was a winner and a loser but arbitration provided a win-win result and was a less-costly exercise.
“The practice of international arbitration law in PNG is still developing,” he said.
Gileng said with arbitration the parties involved could maintain their commercial relationship afterwards.
Tusais said if more companies and individuals embraced arbitration in PNG it could encourage foreign investment.
She said it was important to promote arbitration because investors would feel comfortable investing in PNG when they knew their interests would be secured in the event that a dispute arose.
There were not a lot of cases where PNG companies, individuals or the government engaged in international arbitration, Tusais said.
An example of international arbitration is the dispute between the PNG Government and the PNG Sustainable Development Program over shares from the OK Tedi mine.
Both lawyers said that there was much to learn from this conference and were thankful to the chamber for their selection.
The conference will be hosted by the government of Fiji with Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific.
It will be on Feb 12-13.