02 Jun Arbitration and Mediation in Africa
In May 2020 I moved to the AFSA Group at the Johannesburg Bar. This stands for Arbitration Foundation South Africa.
AFSA has been dubbed the “most digitised Group” in South Africa by media reports. The Group consists of state of the art facilities for arbitration, mediation and virtual court appearances. AFSA consists of various branches including AFSA InternationalInternational which is responsible for administering international arbitration in terms of the International Arbitration Act, 15 of 2017, AFSA Construction which handles infrastructure disputes, AFSA mediation offering a confidential mediation process and AFSA Municipal which provides dispute resolution services to municipalities in South Africa. It is also associated with CAJAC, China Africa Joint Arbitration Centre with centres in Johannesburg and China. The various branches have links to offices in Nairobi and Shanghai. Parallel, I am undertaking a course with the Association of Arbitrators (AoA) in accelerated arbitration.
With the digitisation of court processes particularly in the High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa, there is a stead move away from physical appearances in a court room. This is particularly due to the Coronavirus pandemic.