E-court, robot judges, digital arbitration, what's the point?

Normally, you go to the government judge for a dispute. But nowadays there are also e-courts or robot judges. Several members of the FHI wonder whether they as a company can have to deal with this. The answer is almost certainly that this is not the case. I will explain this.

The government judge

The government judge is independent and must comply with the law. This way, parties always have the opportunity to respond to the other and are given sufficient time to defend themselves. You can then appeal or even cassate a decision by the judge. But going to court is expensive. For a debt collection dispute, you already pay almost five hundred euros. A refusal to pay is often offset by a defective delivery. Then it quickly becomes a “normal” commercial matter. For a dispute about a commercial matter, you quickly have to pay one to three thousand euros and this can add up considerably in complex cases. On top of that, there are the costs for the lawyer. If you appeal, it becomes twice as expensive.

The digital arbitration

Companies such as E-court, Digitrage and Stichting Arbitrage focus on the large amounts of debt collections from health insurers, for example. These companies offer the possibility to resolve a debt collection dispute by means of digital arbitration for approximately one hundred euros. Both the claimant and the defendant can upload the relevant documents via a portal, after which a ruling is quickly returned. This is not an official verdict as we know it from the court. Only when the arbitration verdict has been stamped by the court can the defendant's assets be seized.

What does a digital arbitration award represent?

The shortest answer: probably very little. With a bit of bad luck, no human being has even been involved. The digital arbitration companies are biased because they want to keep large clients such as insurers on their side. In addition, it is not known who the arbitrators are, whether they have any knowledge of the law and whether they have applied the law correctly. The verdict is not public, so it cannot be checked by others. The court that puts a stamp on it does not check whether the content is correct, the judge does not assess whether the law has been applied correctly. It is little more than a formality check. There are no guarantees for a substantively sound verdict and a sound process.

So…

A judgment from E-court, for example, is incomparable to a judgment from a judge. Without the stamp of a court on it, the creditor can do absolutely nothing with it. There is no guarantee that the judgments are sound in terms of content. If you have doubts about the claim, it is better to go to court.

Why not relevant for FHI companies?

Digital arbitration concerns bulk collection cases such as those of health insurers. These concern large numbers of uncontested claims. The collection cases that FHI members may be confronted with are usually disputed claims because, for example, they are based on a defective delivery by the other party. This requires a guaranteed thorough and extensive investigation of the facts and correct application of the law in a proper process. Digital arbitration cannot offer these guarantees.

Conclusion

Creditors of FHI members will not quickly summon them to the robot judge. If they do, you can object and the case will still be brought before the real judge.

Mr. Ing. Frank Meijers