More than 9,500 arbitration claims — worth approximately $18 billion — were filed in the
US in 2020. This multibillion-dollar industry is still stuck in the stone age. A new blockchain based project aims to take the arbitration process out of the public court system, by providing a streamlined way to resolve commercial disputes, entirely online.
Jur targets civil and commercial disputes in the range of between $5,000 to $1.5 million. Their results show that as compared to the average 14 months of time needed to solve arbitration disputes in the traditional way, they can realistically complete them anywhere between 1-3 months. That’s approximately ten times faster than public courts. They standardize arbitration settlements, so that they’re enforceable across 168 signatory countries of the United Nations’ New York Convention, one of the key instruments in international arbitration, with anyone in the industry of arbitration and dispute resolution benefiting from Jur’s virtual arbitration solution.
Jur’s core product is a 100% legally binding arbitration, driven by modern digital arbitration, with a procedure which is UNCITRAL compliant. That means that the judgments on Jur are enforceable in 168 Countries. Arbitrators can be legal experts or industry experts. The procedures on Jur depending on their size and complexity require a lawyer or can be lawyerless. The procedure lasts anywhere between 60 and 120 days depending on several factors. The ideal dispute value target goes between USD10K to USD1.5M. Jur is working as R&D on different products which are based on crowd-based voting systems offering fast remedies or oracle solutions for smart contacts.
Jur has headquarters in San Francisco and in the so-called CryptoValley, Zug, in Switzerland, yet with a fully distributed and remote team. We spoke with Alessandro Palombo from Jur to learn more.
Jur.io CEO, Alessandro Palombo
A Modern Day Justice System
With all the incredibly innovative projects being launched on the blockchain, this one stands out as having real world use. According to Palombo “our goal is to empower a new generation of modern, digital arbitrators with a modern day justice system for small and medium businesses, allowing normal businesses or even large ones to manage disputes in a hassle-free way. In a multi-billion arbitration market, the digital arbitration we are building cuts half of the cost and 80% of the time required.”
To become the mainstream online justice provider, Jur is building foundation features which leverage blockchain technology for increasing transparency and neutrality of the procedure rather than opting for the internet.
To make digital justice deeply independent from commercial or political interest, and simple for anyone to use, Jur is building that necessary bridge, by using decentralization features powered by the JUR token. “In blockchain terms, we are building the Internet of jurisdictions, for offering legally binding enforcements to smart contracts too.”
Principles of The Blockchain Meet Legal Resolution
Legal resolution enacted on the blockchain rather than over the internet meets the principles of neutrality, fairness and quality. Because of the advantages of the blockchain there is no way the mechanism can be corrupted or that Jur can give advantage to either one of the parties.
Palombo added “The main benefit is that we enable users to verify and trust the process of a modern digital justice experience. This system ensures that fairness is incorporated through both a random selection of the arbitrator, and a peer-review system on each award. Any information stored on the platform is encrypted and the team doesn’t have access to it.”
Jur just received a $1 million investment, and was recently backed by Tim Draper (early investor at Carta, Docusign, Coinbase and 30+ unicorns) who also joined as a Jur Advisor. Jur was accelerated by MDR Lab in London and won a public procurement from LawTech.
According to them “This investment allows to speed up the customer development activities for ensuring product-market fit and orient the company for growth for the next round.
The next few weeks are key for this project, as Jur will be launching the Jur Roster, the Roster of modern, digital arbitrators. The road ahead for such a visionary project may be paved with obstacles,
Palombo told us “The challenge is to build product market fit and at the same path the blockchain-based features and components which, at the current stage of the industry, offer friction from a UX perspective to the users. This challenge made us adopt a progressive approach to decentralization that we called “road to decentralization”.
