A recently published article came across my desk today and I thought it was worth mentioning here in our blog, because it covers a newer form of dispute resolution in a highly commercialised area of law: takeover disputes. I admit I don’t know much about takeover law and maybe that’s because so many of us involved in dispute resolution are not commercial law-type people. That’s a shame because commercial law and ADR should and do go hand in hand.

Ian Ramsay, Professor of commercial law at the University of Melbourne, has recently published this excellent article on takeover panels as an alternative to litigation for resolving takeover disputes. The Australian Takeover Panel has operated since 2000 and was established to reduce tactical litigation by target companies wanting to resist takeover bids. The takeover panels, according to Ramsay, has proven a low- cost and efficient forum for the resolution of takeover disputes and is used by both private parties and regulators such as ASIC.
The piece is worth a read, whether you are commercially- minded or not.