FIC participated in the World Bank’s focus group on the impact of COVID on resolving commercial disputes

The World Bank team, who is in charge for “BiH Commercial Justice Technical Assistance Project”, organized a focus group in October for lawyers from Bosnia and Herzegovina who are active in the field of economy, including law firms that are FIC members, such as: Dimitrijevic & Partners, Maric & Co, CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz, Wolf Theiss, DMB Legal and Karanovic & Partners.
The general topics for discussion in this focus group were as follows:
a) the impact of the COVID pandemic on the work of the courts in BiH, and
b) the impact of the COVID pandemic on the economy – legal aspects and the most common legal issues.
The lawyers discussed and shared information about their experiences so far on the mentioned topics. The focus group was held as an online one-hour meeting.
By the way, this Project aims to support justice institutions in implementing reforms that improve efficiency and access to commercial justice in BiH, leaning on the recommendations of the Feasibility Study on Improving Commercial Case Management in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2016. The project consists of five components: (1) strengthening commercial departments and commercial courts in FBiH and RS; (2) speeding up the resolution of small claims based on the results of a comparative legal analysis of civil proceedings in BiH and in several EU countries; (3) increasing access to justice for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) by developing a guide to increase legal literacy among firms; (4) capacity building through the development and implementation of peer counseling and additional training for judges in the commercial law department; and (5) implementing procedural reforms to close gaps and reduce bottlenecks in case processing through proposed legislative changes.