1. Il Caso Italia:
normative framework for ODR
Irene Sigismondi
Avvocato (Rome Bar Working Groups on IT&Law and Int.l Rel.)
Research Assist. - Università La Sapienza - Roma
Senior fellow @ Yale Center for Internet Studies (Yale Univ. USA)

2. State of the art:
1. Jurisdiction culture = legacy system
2. Technology vs legal approach =
neutrality vs endorsement?
3. Organizational culture = direct & indirect
costs of change (resistence)
4. Possible (positive) Side effects

3. Jurisdiction = legacy system
Judge
Lawyers Parties

4. Legal existing framework: a
timeline
1940 1983 1990 1993 1994 1997 1999 2003 2005 2010

5. Art. 141 Cod. Consumo
(DLgs 206/2005)
Extrajudicial solution of controversies
1. Between consumer and business,
parties can start extrajudicial
procedures for dispute resolution also
with telematic tools.

6. EU Directive 2008/52/CE
Access to justice
Crossborder civil and commercial cases
Enforceable decisions in Member States (reg.
2201/2003)
Modern technologies (cons. 9: but “does not
obstacle”)
Minimun standards ( EC 2001/310/CE )
Jurisdiction as last resort and fundamental rights
warranty (Nizza Charter)

7. ODR: how to favor it ?
Two possible approaches
Technology oriented
bottom-up
neutral
Law oriented
Top-down
Official endorsement

8. Organizational culture:
observation & action
Bottom up drifting or Top-down strategy ?
change
A little bit of both
But considering
Direct & indirect
Costs of..
involved: the “mediation” culture can do a lot
also in this process

9. Will ODR and Jurisdiction get
along well? (1)
- some numbers
Conciliations procedures in the areas of
TCL, services, commerce, tourism, finance
and credit.
2005 = 15.916
2006 = 26.896
2007 = 50.808
“Rapporto sulla diffusione della giustizia alternativa in Italia” (2008)

10. Will ODR and Jurisdiction get
along well? (2)
Some evaluation
about possible side-effects:
High specialization, quasi- real-time
solution and trustmarks can make a
positive (“cooperative”) competition to the
traditional legal system, which could
concentrate on other cases

11. Perspective: ODR for all ?
Technology is there
Virtually applicable to any case of
controversies
Should it work for all fields or just some
selected specialized ones?
Open issue for future developments and
evaluations.

12. Gracias por la atención
Irene.sigismondi@gmail.com