Pavlo Kuftyryev, Managing Partner of Greco Law Company, participated in a two-day conference at Wolfson College, Oxford. The conference was dedicated to a status and a future of the European Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) system on consumer rights protection matters.
This event was organized by the world’s leading experts in ADR field, such as Professor Christopher Hodges (University of Oxford, UK), an author of numerous scientific papers, including publications on ADR, consumer rights protection and collective damages compensation, and Professor Stefaan Voet (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium), a leading European specialist in complex litigation, class actions and ADR.
“For me, as a scientist and practitioner, it was an extremely pleasant moment to join this conference chaired by such a great, world-recognized scientist and specialist Professor Christopher Hodges (University of Oxford, UK). The significance of Class Actions in Ukraine is rapidly growing, being extremely relevant and promising for Ukrainian society, both in a context of establishing justice for victims of Russian military aggression and reforming our legislation in terms of developing a specific law that would regulate class action issues in Ukraine. I had a chance to discuss with respected professors the prospects and possible issues to tackle with in future trials against the aggressor country.” – Pavlo Kuftyryev said.
Among other issues discussed at the conference and related to the application of Class Action, the most relevant for Ukraine, in Pavlo Kuftyryev’s view, were:
- civil jurisdiction and civil litigation objectives in modern judicial systems;
- digitalization of justice; will Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) replace courts and ADR? What changes have ADR/ombudsmen faced recently?
- general problematics and trends in a dispute resolution;
- Class Actions as one of the leading dispute resolution mechanisms;
- the future of dispute resolution and consumer rights protection.
Pavlo Kuftyryev has separately thanked professors Alan Uzelac and Stefaan Voet, editors of the book ‘Class Actions in Europe: Holy Grail or a Wrong Trail?’ for a gift – a copy of an autographed book by world-famous experts in class action lawsuits.
“Participation in such events as Oxford conference is of great importance both for me and for our entire law firm team, which is the first one in Ukraine to specialize in implementation of class actions. I am confident that the discussions we had with leading experts in this field will help us implement the best world practices into Ukrainian legislation.”- Pavlo Kuftryryev summed up.
It’s important to mention, among other participants of the conference, the following recognized professors and practitioners: Professor Naomi Creutzfeldt (Kent Law School, UK), Katelijne Exelmans (Head of the Belgian consumer mediation service), Judith Turner (Deputy Chief Ombudsman, UK), Marine Cornelis (Executive Director of Next Energy Consumer), Lewis Shand Smith (Chair of the Banking Resolution Service, UK), Matthew Vickers (Chief Executive and Chief Ombudsman of the Ombudsman Service, UK), Felix Braun (Universalschlichtungsstelle des Bundes / Germany), Joachim Leitner (mediator, Verbraucherschlichtung Austria), Anna Howard (Center for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University, London), Professor Fernando Esteban de la Rosa (University of Granada, Spain), Professor Orna Rabinovich (University of Haifa, Israel, UCL Faculty of Law), Professor Pablo Cortez (University of Leicester, UK), Diana Wallis (Honorary Member of CSLS, Honorary Member of VUB, former member and Vice-President of the European Parliament), Eric Houtman (Energy Ombudsman, Belgium) and Dr. Alexandre Biard (BEUC).