Maritime experts canvasses for dispute resolution

Experts in the maritime sector have advised freight forwarders to explore Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process of the Council for Regulation of Freight Forwarders in Nigeria (CRFFN) to resolve trade disputes.
According to the experts, the barrage of trade-related disputes lingering in courts can slow down the flow of business and in most cases scare away potential investors.
They claimed that there were over 34 maritime cases in courts that had tarried for over five years, adding that such had put investment capitals on hold.
Dr Increase Uche and Chief Henry Njoku, both CRFFN members said in Lagos that trade disputes were better resolved out of court.
Uche, who doubles as the President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), said that the newly-reconstituted CRFFN had a desk for trade dispute resolution.
He said that part of what scared foreign investors away from doing business in Nigerian ports was the inability of the conventional courts to dispense with trade cases.
“The sector is a capital intensive one and no serious business man will want his investment capital trapped in a protracted case,’’ Uche said.
He said that the CRFFN came with a lot of reforms to reposition the freight forwarding sector, noting that one of those was a trade dispute resolution desk.
Mr Henry Njoku, Vice Chairman of the Governing Board of the CRFFN said that a dispute settled in an alternative way to court mechanism showed a win-win situation.
Njoku, urged practitioners to embrace the CRFFN dispute resolution desk and put an end to long waiting of court ruling that would not promote business.