 use of technology has changed and as they say old-order changes yielding place to new. And when we see that on a common platform which otherwise booking a ticket is coming to a hotel was quite a challenge within itself and technology has changed its facets and for the betterment. Yesterday I was checking it out. They were saying that in fact even by the retina they can check it out as to whether what type of things you will have to face in your disease etc. That is why when Mr. Sundari from this Google was informing and same way when we are talking of use of technology in arbitration. The biggest aspect of technology is that Mr. Jan is in Delhi, Mr. Tejas again there Mr. Chukh from Singapore and I am in Chandigarh and we do not know who all are watching us pan world not only on the YouTube but also on the Facebook. These are all the facets of the technology but is the new the normal to the effect as to whether this technology will take place whether it will be the hybrid or if we have to use technology in the facets of law how it will develop further and how things are to be taken. And when we were talking of technology in arbitration we thought why not take persons who have created the niche within the institution and beyond because beyond I am saying because when clients start engaging you beyond what your normal circle is it only shows that technology makes them popular and when we have amongst us Mr. Gopal Jan I was talking to him when we were connecting for the session that somebody had recommended that since we are doing a lot of webinars why don't you bring Mr. Gopal Jan for a telecom discussion or for that matter for economic justice. At same way when we with Mr. Tejas we were connected on few of the WhatsApp group as they say in the WhatsApp group where you're discussing knowledge you come to understand what type of knowledge a person is and you're able to connect and move forward and rather interestingly we were connected on the same platform it was only yesterday when I peeped in I saw that Mr. Jan is also in that arbitration group and somehow Mr. Ashish took the local principal from Baker McKenzie is not there but as they say that like-minded people come on a common platform and think together and though we can speak lot on the speakers as such but since we always run short of time and the content of the speakers is always much higher therefore we have got few questions on the WhatsApp as well as on the email as well as the common questions which we thought could be taken forward to understand the nuances of technology and arbitration. So we would be taking those questions which commonly rise as to how this technology would be taken forward what are the challenges what are the things as I say the best of these sculptures just allow the things for the betterment to bring the best sculptor. So similarly the challenges being faced challenges faced and overcome and what things can be carried forward would be the discussions of the today's topic and I'm feeling that we are taking a lot of time only on the introduction of the topic without taking much time I will ask a common question to all three and I will request them they can unmute themselves because otherwise every time we will have to unmute them that since Mr. Jan is a senior advocate it will be a rare occasion where instead of getting briefed he will brief us so that will be a new thing how has been your experience with the use of technology in the arbitration during the last one year we are discussing of one year because we say that technology has taken its leap jump only during these covert times over to you Mr. Jan. Yeah good afternoon and thank you very much and I think all of us are here on the same platform sharing our experiences so it's nothing to do with labels but really sharing a collective experience or a new experience you know all of us always like to try out new cuisines so technology offered a new recipe a new way of doing things with some degree of innovation and I'm a firm believer in innovation and flexibility because anything which is new generates its own interest so I for one have found it very useful and helpful let me give two or three examples we often use the expression being on the same page now technology actually helps you to face the same page because one of the forms of presentation which I'm sure all of us took recourse to was screen sharing so you actually are on the same page because you the decision maker as well as the other side are able to by way of screen sharing save yourself the trouble of opening volumes and reams and reams of pages but actually as I said on the screen put up a document which we can all see so that's being on the same page one advantage second because of many glitches and since it was work in progress everyone was keen to get the point across as soon as possible so it gave you an opportunity to do what I call pinpointed accuracy far more focused and crisp because you never knew when your link will go not go second advantage third with hyperlinking and documentations and documents available at a click you actually brought in a lot more efficiency and saved a lot of time and four I think it was just new for everybody else so there was a lot more enthusiasm and interest which came and I waited in one of my first international arbitration which I did which was to do with the construction dispute which is according to me rather boring so I presented it in a video format now if you're in a court you only do oral arguments you turn the pages but this gave me a chance to do what I call a visual effect more than the argued reading part of it idea was how do you make an impact on somebody's mind space so it gives you all these new aids and tools that you can use and like with cricket moving from test cricket to 50 hours to 20 hours and maybe someday to five these are different you get a different format of doing things and for many people it is what I call a sense of justice bridging the justice gap because you didn't have to move lock stack and barrel the way Vikas introduced that we could all be where we were so that was a huge advantage for a large number of people who may not have been able to do a hearing in a matter if it was not in the virtual mode and it was just the exposure to technology and the learnings which came with it including sometimes as it happens in the supreme court they can actually you know use a button and say shut up so the judge also has the power to shut you up so it brings a little more discipline and a sense of urgency and efficiency in the manner in which you're presenting and it at least sets us thinking how useful this can be as a tool going forward and if you are living in a digital world with a digital future then I think disputes and arbitrations should also have the benefit of technology and now we've seen so many different platforms innovations virtual hearings rooms which have been created so I think the freshness also came from doing something in a different way so for me it's been an enriching learning and rewarding experience and I'm sure we will all would have had some causes of concern or pain but I think the benefits or the boon far outweighs any of those disadvantages the benefits are more and I think it's there in the long term something which COVID accelerated and many courts had started were designated as e-courts but really the judges themselves had their cases you know on a screen but this allows everybody that way to really participate in a virtual world so I would say it's been a rewarding experience and I would advocate this for everyone particularly in long drawn out disputes I think sitting in your own chamber not having to move an army and you know bags and bags like checking in at the airport I think that itself saves conserves a lot of energy and sometimes the stress of how do you move so many things arrange it and get started so everything on a screen at your desk yes thanks for organizing this because and I'm very happy to be a part of this asking panel I'm thankful for Mr. Jain and Ashish for agreeing to speak on this webinar and the topic is very interesting so and it's a hot topic for the day is technology and arbitration coming together and for ages now we have been trying to bring technology into arbitration it's not new this combination is not new and we have been using technology considerably in arbitration proceedings to save time and cost even before pandemic we have seen that number of times we have had situations where the witnesses are in different jurisdictions or the councils are in different jurisdictions for procedural hearings we have used the technology and technology has been part and parcel of every business and arbitration is modes to resolve dispute between mostly corporate clients and we see that they are invariably using technology for storing information for processing information and also for communicating with each other so it is nothing new so there are various facets of technology which we were already using but as Mr. Jain said we have accelerated this if this was like a big jolt on the process of arbitration which we were so used to doing in a physical world we were suddenly forced to move to the virtual world in my experience in last one year has been really enriching and I'll give you the reasons why because not only that we are able to do the arbitration efficiently in terms of saving time and cost it has been a huge benefit for the parties we have saved number of days just for traveling just for preparing and meeting physically of course physical meeting has its own benefits and you see the personal touch when you meet with persons your cross-examining person so those are the issues we always face but in overall the experience has been amazing we have done number of very heavy arbitrations in the last one and a half years and successfully without any glitch yes of course there were certain issues but those were not unsurmountable so we have done a number of experiments with various things we will discuss that in detail but overall I thought it was a good experience experiment and we have all been surviving just because of the technology because if technology would not have been there we would have been out of job for this last one year so it has been kind of a life saving not drug but life saving technology I would say which will help us to survive in this profession. Yeah Mr Chowk how do you supplement or back to differ I feel that differing would be a very less scope. Good afternoon good evening everyone my name is Ashish I'm a local principal with an international law firm Baker McKenzie and thank you Vikas for inviting me today I'm truly grateful it's a very interesting topic because you probably hit the nail on the head and probably it might seem a bit awkward given that I'm in an international law firm people expect me to obviously be attuned to international best practices but with the yin comes the yang and what I mean to say by that is that there must be a balance so maybe this might seem a bit provocative maybe it's just from a stalwart for who the novelty has worn off maybe I haven't had the deep crisis that India has suffered in the last few months but I do see obviously the advantage of technology but I also see the disadvantages and the safeguards that are required and my point simply is don't do away with technology for that would be to take the baby out with the bathwater but to ensure that there are sufficient safeguards so that an arbitration not only is done efficiently and expeditiously but one in which natural justice is adhered to and due due process is is considered now that might seem a bit as I said counterintuitive to most people here a lot of people are used to by now seeing the praises of video conferencing virtual hearings I hear all of that I understand where everyone is coming from I can understand how this has saved a lot of time and it's obviously saved people from losing a lot of their livelihoods but the same time I do a lot of international arbitrations across the world and I'll just give you just by way of background the sort of things that I deal with so I represent clients in a number of industries such as aviation commodities hospitality oil and gas power technology god forbid even office stationery and I do it in a number of different jurisdictions so we've got matters in Dubai Hong Kong London Indonesia and of course New York and Singapore where I struggled most is with the time difference and we'll come on to that there are a couple of questions that were obviously pointed on this issue time differences whilst you know might seem insignificant when you look at it from a regional bias for example if you're dealing with matters which are india related or something within the region but they take a life of their own and they can compound the situation when you're dealing with an arbitration in New York but your witnesses are in Singapore and your arbitrator decides that he's going to because of the pandemic take refuge in New Zealand you have different challenges that come about there's also issues of witness tampering and I find that you know whilst obviously during the midst of a pandemic we don't want to rock the boat it's very easy for us to wholesale adopt virtual hearings given the novelty and the amount of time that we are able to save but I think there will come a time perhaps as we venture out to the pandemic when we realize that we do require a lot of safeguards and if we don't have those safeguards you will see that there are a number of challenges that will be made to arbitral awards so you may have a situation where you get through the arbitration fairly quickly but you may struggle to enforce such an award particularly in countries that may not be as developed and as pro arbitration friendly as a number of other jurisdictions so I just wanted to at least adumbrate those points and obviously we'll delve on to them in more detail during this seminar. So the experience as it is that everybody is experiencing in a better way but since we have used it for one one and a half year I would say it's now approximately one and a half year only since it broke up approximately on 20th of March so what are the practical concerns of using these technologies for arbitration hearings and what safeguards should be built to give equal opportunity to the group parties like Mr. Jan was saying somebody could be muted can the arbitrator act that arbitrarily or he has to act with the consonants as the normal hearing goes on. We'll ask again Mr. Jan to take forward and then this time we'll ask Ashish to plug in and then Mr. Tejas. No I think like Ashish just mentioned there are challenges too which come with it and everybody would have experienced in different ways particularly if you're working across time zones so I think one of the interesting things which I've always felt is that it's very important for practitioners to exchange notes because you really can't make a standard set of guidelines or procedures because it's still work in progress in many countries and Tejas is right that it was there but not used as much by virtue of the fact that we all like to be physically present before tribunals and you know with our whole team etc so I think one way I was thinking is if everyone shares their experiences both the pros and the cons basis on which we can make an informal code of conduct or a certain set of rules so there's a level playing field with a fair opportunity for everyone plugging some of the gaps so for example like Ashish touched on witness tampering I think initially when one of my first arbitration that was fixed for evidence recording of evidence and naturally the contesting party which was the respondent did not want the arbitration to go so their whole point was look we cannot go because we don't know witnesses can be tutored, coached etc so finally a way was found where you put you know cameras in different positions you take and taking in in one case we actually send somebody to sit in that room with that person so once there's the will and there's a way to make it work things do happen I'm sure in the normal arbitration world also some amount of sign language etc is used but I must tell you one interesting thing which we realized that at the lunch break I had put a certain set of question let's say question 58 and we were on 60 after the lunch break the witness comes back and says oh I think I want to volunteer something and while answering 60 he actually tries to correct 58 so you could quite clearly see that nobody anticipated that when you're away for lunch break there would be no oversight or monitoring and it was such an obvious way in which he just came with a pre-prepared line of argument which I call not a response and tried to improve on it so these are things which would happen but I think there's no substitute for people just putting pros and cons their experiences at every stage of the case and from which like we have always practice directions etc some kind of guidelines can be made to have greater uniformity and consistency and perhaps if it becomes popular then it becomes like a standard or a norm because in India particularly and I'm sure the agents will agree every arbiter tribunal wants to have its own set of practice direction they actually pre-print it and bring it and merely read it out and just get parties to agree on it so I think this will also provide a better opportunity as I said to have one harmonious overarching quote with of course a lot of flexibility because many things may be unanticipated and may happen as we go along. Mr. Cho. Thank you that's very insightful Gopal actually it's it's a quite helpful way of looking at how to approach arbitration I had one point I wanted to make and I don't know if there's a ready answer for it I want to throw it out there for what it's worth because it troubles me. I'll give an example of an arbitration seated in London and let's say party A the claimant has counsel who's based in London so you've got at the seat counsel is based there but obviously you know it's an international arbitration and it doesn't necessarily have to have a physical hearing and let's say party B is from a less developed country Indonesia and their counsel is based in Indonesia there is an issue of expert evidence that's required the expert for the respondent party B is based in the United States and so you have a situation where the tribunal is sitting in London the claimants counsel and the claimant is in London and party B the respondent which is already disadvantaged is sitting in Indonesia their counsel is in Indonesia and they have an expert in the United States and you have a situation where the tribunal says well we're going to have a hearing has to be done virtually and we're going to keep it because we can't factor in all of these various competing times we'll keep it in the afternoon for us 3 p.m. London time which unfortunately means that if you're the respondent you probably have to start 11 hours later so that's 2 a.m. and the the respondent's expert is in Los Angeles it's for him around 6 a.m. in the morning and so you can see that one of the basic tenets of arbitration if you look at the model law it's article 18 equal treatment of parties and if you're left in this sort of situation left in a vacuum without any further context you can say well the tribunal has broad discretionary powers to decide when they want to have a hearing you know and it's it's actually one of the primary tenets of arbitration you can't even challenge it because it's procedural in nature and if you're trying to do this in London the Curia Law is is English law and that's pretty much in favor of broad discretionary power of the tribunal but you could find yourself in a situation if you look at it and you take a step back of how this can be used in a way that unfairly deals with one party now you might say well that's an extreme case no tribunal will do it and that I will tell you straight away is not correct there is actually an Austrian Supreme Court decision on a very similar point last year in about October 2020 in which one of the arguments was this that because of the various time zones and the mere fact that the institution in that case it was an Austrian institution called the VIAC the Vienna International Prison Center they didn't have a provision for virtual hearings this was in 20 and obviously the hearing took place during the midst of the pandemic and so they said well there is no provision so it would be contrary to the arbitral procedure agreed by the parties and you can't have a situation where you ask me to attend a hearing at 6 a.m. in the morning and those objections were dismissed all the way up to the Austrian Supreme Court the Austrian Supreme Court said it did not it was not incompatible with Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights which is the right of fair trial but my point is you will come across these sorts of situations often and I think that ties in quite well with Gopal's point that we need to find a way to come up with a broad consensus right now I think we're dealing with these issues in a very ad hoc and we make it up as we go along because we're in uncharted territory but I think there will come a time and I'm hoping that will happen as we end this pandemic and move towards a new hybrid future where we can think about these broad consensus ways of dealing with virtual hearings because I agree it's here to stay whether we like it or not it's not that I dispute it or I resist it in any way I just want to ensure that everyone has the fair trial that they expected when they signed up to an arbitration agreement. Yeah and just to add to what Mr Zain and Ashish said we face a lot of practical challenges. Can I just come in for a second I can't resist it so I'm just taking the example Ashish gave and just like you have guards who work in shifts it should be by a toss of a coin so if somebody gets a 2am slot the next time it should be the reverse so that's the way of fairing it out that you because it's not a single day hearing so it must balance out like roster and shifts daytime and night time. Yeah and that's the challenge always the arbitrator's face is because they have to remain neutral and as Ashish pointed out article 18 we have for India seated arbitration identical section 18 which says the same thing that you have to give an equal treatment to parties and full opportunity to present their case and if you find a technological inadequacy in terms of imbalance for one party having an advantage over the other it always poses a challenge for the arbitrator how to strike a balance and that is something the arbitrator has to carefully consider because it may lead to a potential challenge situation because it's a duty of the arbitrator to pass an impossible award and due to procedural irregularity if the arbitrator is creating a situation where the award itself can be challenged on that ground or the enforcement can be registered because not only under section 34 which gives grounds for challenging the award and also under the grounds for resisting a foreign award we have these grounds of not having an opportunity to present the case and that is something is really concerning when it comes to the use of technology the other aspect is agreement between the parties and many a times we have seen that the parties don't agree to use of technology per say or use of certain aspects of the technological tools and it could be anything it could be for e-discovery it could be video conferencing or it could be transcript services and these are the technological tools which are very important and has become integral part of the arbitration process and if there is no agreement how the tribunal can come in place because it always a situation where either you have an agreement between the parties and if the parties failed then the arbitrator has to make a decision and it is a very tough procedural decision for arbitrator is to what is fair because the due process is fundamental for any arbitral process and you have to take into consideration that what is the correct way to balance the situation and I have seen in experiences that always there should be a consideration of the all the aspects and then the arbitrator should come to the conclusion even in Supreme Court of India in Sangyong has said that if the situations are beyond control of the parties and they are not able to present the case and see the example with Ashish is saying that there are time zone differences that could be that the party doesn't have a bandwidth or the lawyers are not coming from a jurisdiction where are tech savvy so those are the issues which the beyond control of the parties and just because all of us are using technology we cannot presume that everybody is equally equipped to use the technological tools and that is where the arbitrator has to come up with a safeguard and those safeguards could be by way of the procedural orders or convincing the parties to agree because ultimately one party says something and the other party is not agreeing to that we have to strike a balance and the arbitrator has to then decide which one is correct and pass a reason order so that tomorrow nobody is able to challenge it on the ground of procedural unfairness or bias and we have to see that what is the efficacy or efficiency for conducting the procedure because ultimately arbitrator is master of the procedure unless it's an institutional rules and here there is a big difference between ad hoc and institution most of the institutions have this technological thing which are already incorporated as a part of the procedural rules and if you are having institutional arbitration as part of the agreement itself you are adopting those best practices or techniques or the practice notes which are given for the parties and the arbitrators and that helps a lot in terms of conducting the arbitration if we have that institutional arbitration so this is also something to be kept in mind when parties are drafting the arbitration agreement is to now foresee that what kind of issues will arise at the time of practical aspects when at the hearing stage by use of technology and are you selecting the institutions who are supporting technology or they have adequate safeguards built into the rules themselves so that when it comes to the decision making process it becomes easier for the arbitrator to come to the conclusion on the use of technology so those are the pros and cons which we have to keep it in mind of course there are advantages and disadvantages of any technology it can be misused and it can be used to the benefit of the parties but at the same time the arbitrator has to keep it in mind that they are giving equal opportunity and full ability for parties to present the case. After you three spoke I am reminded like you said that you have to facilitate and assimilate the persons with the technology as the famous saying says that people were quite hungry in France and they were not getting the food then the queen said why don't they eat the cake so you have to prepare everyone for the purposes with the latest technology until they suffer a lot then so we have slightly covered that but we take things further forward what potential legal challenges can be brought to the context of the use of technology in arbitration hearings what lot of people speak more on the evidence part they see speak how it will be led etc so I'll ask this time Tejas to take things forward not to hand over the panel to somebody yes definitely no so these are the in the context of use of technology that could be various challenges the one major challenge which we are facing is that witness cross examination where once the witnesses are at a different locations different time zones we are not able to connect there could be a technological disruptions while we are doing the cross examination so those are the real problems we are facing but there are ways and means to overcome that and there could be 360 degree cameras or there could be procedural direction as Mr Jain said that we can have one person present there we have a backup system where if one system fails you have different platforms where you can have the parties to have another system to log in so those are the issues which can be easily dealt with in terms of the legal challenges the legal challenges can be that they were not able to present the case and that is where the courts at the time of deciding either the challenge to the award or enforcement of an award we'll have to go into that aspect and see that what is the situation at the time of the objection being taken before the arbitral tribunal whether there was a waiver of that objection and whether the tribunal actually dealt with that objection in a proper way and if the tribunal had dealt with it properly then in my view the legal challenges are very difficult to sustain because use of technology if it is deployed in a proper way it can definitely be said to be in advancement of the dispute resolution and the court should not come in the way of those kind of use of technology and the legal challenges in my view should be allowed only in extreme circumstances when the parties were put to a complete disadvantage to use because of the use of technology but in my experience there are very few cases where parties were completely put to disadvantage because arbitrators are always concerned about their role because arbitrators play a major role and in some times the institutions also play a major role in in resolving this technical aspect the one way to do it is have dry run or have some kind of test where the bandwidth and the other platform and other issues for document production and all can be tested by the parties and then parties agree to use of that by way of giving a full opportunity of parties and always arbitrator should give opportunity for parties to confirm that they are fine with the use of technology so that later on when they lose on the merit they should not bring in the procedural aspects while they are challenging the award or resisting the enforcement of an award so those are the issues which we come across but it's easy fix and we can definitely come over it if we give the opportunity to parties to really object and and agree to the use of technology at the at the relevant point yeah mr chok I think you have been sandwiched to both sides the middle of the sandwich is always the most juicy and soft part that's true even at the burgers burger and any I'm fortunate I'm an august company that is all I'm going to say um we have the money we have the substance sir I want to just um flesh out a bit more in detail what they just said because it's very important um the ground that typically you can almost envisage is going to be used is article 34 to a roman 2 of the model law which is the inability to present one's case that really is going to be the core crux of the arguments and what I actually find very interesting is how this concept of virtual hearings quickly going to turn back into a dichotomy between developed and less developed countries and so going back to my previous example you've got a situation where the claimant is in a developed country i.e. the UK their internet speed is relatively advanced but party b the respondent is based in Indonesia which is a less developed country than the UK and the internet infrastructure in Indonesia is still developing and let's say during the evidentiary hearing which is by video conference the respondent who is based in Indonesia and their council let's say they encounter a slow internet connection which is detrimental to them assume that they're going to be screen freezes video called disconnections they also may be susceptible to frequent power outages which is not very common if you're based in the United States or the UK but it is very common in this part of the world and if you're left in that sort of situation technology whilst we think is it is is going to be your friend can also turn to become your foe it can be a liability when people think it's an asset because these disruptions then let's say when the respondents witnesses are giving evidence will prejudice the respondent and then you can say well query did they have a fair opportunity or a reasonable opportunity to present the case so that is i think one example which is clear cut you can see how that is you can turn out now if your seat of the arbitration is London as I said that's a pro arbitration jurisdiction I can imagine that these sort of objections are going to be given short shrift a judge in the High Court in England is unlikely to be swayed by any of these objections that's well and good try then enforcing that in Indonesia where the respondent is and I at least can tell you that a judge sitting in the district court in Jakarta is going to have a bit more sympathy with those arguments than the judge sitting in London and that's just just how things work because the judge in the district court of Jakarta is a human being and has experienced all of those challenges that people experience in less developed jurisdictions like Indonesia another example and I call this fondly the sleeping arbitrator syndrome the reason I say it is because we all have encountered it it's the zoom fatigue the proliferation caused by the onset of COVID-19 are working from home measures all of that have at least made us from time to time experience what we call zoom fatigue and that's essentially because we look at a one-dimensional screen and our brain finds it very difficult to process things in a one-dimensional way we're limiting inhibiting our senses when we do it and I'm going to give you an example this is well before the pandemic but there is a case it's a it's an Irish case which is actually very curious so I was decided by the Court of Appeal in 2010 and you had a situation and I'm going to try to draw an analogy from it you had a situation where an arbitrator was caught snoring during the evidentiary hearing and this wasn't once or twice it was incessant throughout the evidentiary hearing he kept snoring every time arguments were made and lo and behold unsurprising as it might seem when he decided in favor of one party against another the discont the disgruntled party then decided to make an application to set aside the award on the basis that that party had not been able to present its case because the judge or in this case forgive me the arbitrator was snoring during most of the evidentiary hearing and therefore what could he have understood he could go back and check the transcripts but that really is besides the point and the Court of Appeal in that case and I find it very interesting said this it is bad enough that a losing party should be required to accept a decision by a person who may feel has who they may feel has not fully understood the case but a party should not be required to accept a decision by a person who has demonstrably not been paying full attention to a significant part of the matter still less should a party be required to submit further disputes to an arbitrator where that party has justifiably lost faith in their capacity to determine them and whilst as I said this is not a case related to the pandemic or even virtual hearings but given the current crisis that we find ourselves with zoom fatigue and if you take my previous example and you have an arbitrator who's let's say based in New Zealand and he decides that he's going to start the hearing at 8pm because excuse me the other side is based in Europe and have experts in the United States so the converse situation and the hearing mentally drains this arbitrator all the way till 2-3 am in the morning query would he be alert and be fully in his upright senses during the better part of the evidentiary hearing which is being conducted by video conference and even if he is wouldn't you as a disgruntled party still decide to have a go and make a challenge on that basis particularly if you're going to a jurisdiction where the judge may be entirely sympathetic to that point so I just wanted to highlight that these are the cases they're real-life examples and they may not have played out yet completely in the court because all of this is quite recent but it should be in no one should be in any doubt that these challenges are still to come some of them already are going through and I suspect as we go through in 2022 we'll hear in and see more of these sort of challenges. So just to let's add to the anecdotal exchange and let me tell you what happened today and something which happened about 20 years back today in the court of the Chief Justice of India an important case was to start it was the first item and the Chief Justice and it was being addressed by Mr Mukul Rohti India's leading lawyer and the Chief goes Mr Rohti before you start we want to say something and he says please improve your internet connection so he says I have several devices he says no that's exactly the point you argue several important cases before us but because your connection is not very strong or stable we were perhaps not here everything that you see so please have a dedicated device for my court but I was just on the technical glitch now if you take that out of context for a minute legal in geometry you're a bad loser so you think all right let me use this as a good ground that I was unable to present my case because either at my end or at some other end the internet connection was not stable so you advance what like our article our section 34 which is the ground of challenge you try and expand you in a way so you will definitely have people who will take that kind of stance second my 20 year back example which was far before COVID we had a judge of the Delhi High Court very advanced who had a laptop so the party lost the case before this judge in the appeal the first round was while I was arguing he was playing on his laptop he was just making notes on it but the party just was a bad loser so we are definitely going to have a some real life situation we'll get tested because at the moment it's still work in progress and perhaps Ashish mentioned the Vienna case but in large parts of the world this has not really got tested therefore the safeguard goes back to that basic thing use of technology it's very pros and cons and scenarios which we've discussed should all form part of a agreement between parties or definitely codified in practice directions so that it's all laid bare discussed and agreed upon I think like they just mentioned transcription I always feel in India two sites take two divergent views somebody who thinks he doesn't have a good case always supposes transcription then judges or arbitrators also sometimes feels oh everything that we say will be on record so there are all these various things but it's such an efficient way of of doing things but if you want to avoid it you can always put a stumbling block I think it's very important to have a pre agreed arrangement on the rules of the game for virtual hearing taking into account all these things I'm not going to raise the issue that the internet connection was not stable etc etc because otherwise the whole benefit or the fruits of an award can become vulnerable or susceptible to a procedural challenge and largely as I said if you're a bad loser you can misuse it and there would be some some genuine cases as well so I think that's important and three as we've all said I think it's a little early in early in the day there are pros and cons so it's a bit of a wait and watch I think things will evolve as it always happens with procedural rules and directions but fair play becomes very important the example of develop versus developing which we talk about in other contexts these are all realities somebody who's working from home just imagine if you have a massive arbitration you're working from a small space somebody could say look that is not fair way of doing things versus if you were in a you know arbitration center so these are all some what are called wrinkles these creases will have to be fine-tuned and ironed out as we go along but because it's there to stay we must take it in our stride sometimes you have the same issue in court the court is super crowded right you're not able to go you don't get ample time but you don't make it as a ground you accept it so I think some of these things really turn down to let's take it in our stride accept it and move along unless it had a direct bearing on your defense or your ability to present a case some degree of responsibility I think comes from practitioners also who can advise people taking such grounds it's not good for growth of you know technology and arbitration of a virtual virtual hearings so I think all of this calls for risk responsible and mature stakeholders who want the system to work and devise ways of supporting it to work rather than undermine it and pull it down so a positive bent of mind with constructive suggestions to improve if there's a real life situation versus using it as a technicality to challenge it as a part of due process so I think the courts must also be very careful in sifting out what I would call would be a slightly misconceived challenge but one which sounds and feels attractive at face value and therefore the courts also have to play a role because ultimately stakeholders, arbitral tribunals and as they just said everyone wanted to the show should not come to a grinding hall the show must go on so everybody made an endeavor in the pandemic period to go virtual because you couldn't have physical arbitration and I remember the first few months when even that was not there then arbitrators were also falling and saying let's schedule some hearing but everyone wants things to go on so I think we have to see it in that kind of context and have a little more elbow room of acceptance so that it can work and we don't face the series of challenges that we faced under the 96 act at the drop of a hat and courts were interfering so we have a pro arbitration culture broadly developing and it must be pro now too virtual in supporting technology and arbitration as well. When Mr. Jain was speaking of connections I was thinking if it would be connected with all three of them that kindly improve your connections so the first brush in the mind would be that we are already known lawyers we already have good connections so this I will ask what practice guidelines arbitrator should adopt for the use of technology what do you feel Mr. Chok? So typically let me just give you as a starting point there is a proliferation of soft law on the procedure and process of virtual hearing so three that are well known at least in international arbitration community and considered now to be part of best practices one is a CIOB guidance note on remote dispute resolution proceedings I found that very helpful there's another note by the ICC it's the ICC guidance note on possible measures aimed at mitigating the effects of COVID-19 pandemic there's also an HDIAC guideline on virtual hearing so I found that very instructive at least from an international arbitration perspective what I have done in several cases I've now argued about eight out cases virtually as an evidentiary hearing obviously in the grand scheme of things in India I know people do eight cases in a day but you know arbitrations tend to have a life of their own and you take a lot more time but what I have found very helpful is having a protocol in place and usually you know at least in the early days of the pandemic the tribunal was I think there's you know there's always an asymmetrical bias of knowledge the tribunal is usually either a sole arbitrator or a member of three and they're up against law firms some of them you know which have a battery of lawyers and armed to the teeth with resources so it's asymmetrical the knowledge bias but what I have found very helpful is trying to at least agree with the other side and if that's not possible at least put forward a protocol at a very early stage some of the things that I thought were actually very helpful are things which seem obvious to us now perhaps but may not have been obvious when we were in the early days of the pandemic and surprisingly may still not be obvious to a lot of people who otherwise would become witnesses in international arbitration so you know these are things which I call online etiquette and due process considerations and so you know there are times when you still have situations where you will find that you know someone interrupts another speaker again people they've they've you know either mute their microphone and forget to unmute it before they speak they will you know we have found situations where someone decides to have an unauthorized recording of the hearing they're just recording it on their iPhone and I think one of the reasons for this is people believe given that it's all on a screen and it's a zoom conference that it's just like any other meeting so there's this degree of nonchalance which has seeped into arbitration whereas if that witness was in a formal proceeding and the setting was in a physical hearing in let's say you know it could be in a in an office or an arbitration center they tend to be I think a bit more reserved people tend to be a lot more casual these days and I think it's good to at least at the outset set out these sort of rules other things that I have found very helpful is to ensure that the tribunal has the power to direct that none of the witnesses or any of the participant is using unauthorized material or engaging in any unauthorized communication with a third party and that the parties and their witnesses will comply with a request by the tribunal to allow a 360 degree viewing of the witnesses room by video so as to ensure the integrity of the room so these things sound obvious now I think in hindsight given that we've had plenty of experience in the last year of dealing with these sort of issues but it never ceases to surprise me how there's going to be that one odd witness who just doesn't get the memo and so I think it's good as a matter of abundant portion to have that all set out at the outset. Yeah they just like we are all discussing about soft technology doll how can you feel that the soft lock and help in the streamlining use of technology what are the things what are the challenges which can be accepted and what are things we can improve on. Yes so I feel that the soft flow plays a major role Ashish pointed out about ICC, HKIC and CIR I have also come across Seol protocol on video conferencing and international arbitration that is something is a very important tool then we have also Indian arbitration forum has come up with a protocol on virtual hearings and those can be adopted as it is so what happens is that we need a standardization of the use of technology so that the both parties have visibility, clear visibility as to what they are going to get into and it's not about only about virtual hearings it is about use of technology for production of documents use of technology for transcript services and also now we have the case management tools where everything is available at one particular place and those are the platforms where you can use those for filing of your heavy documentation so that you don't have to give the physical hard copy or the bundles to the tribunals we can have paperless arbitrations so of course pandemic has forced us to use video conferencing facilities but apart from video conferencing we have to see a technology as a holistic partner in the arbitration where we can use it at each and every stage of the arbitration where we are needing to use technology and for that the soft flow plays a very major role so all the arbitral institutions like ICC, CR, LCIA and MCIA and Indian arbitration forum again it's an independent arbitration bar of lawyers who have come across various arbitrations and they have come together to formulate this protocol and I'm part of that forum and we took a lot of effort in developing this protocol so if somebody is having an ad hoc arbitration and not having the benefit of institutional rules we can have this protocol as part of the procedural order and it can be it's like an IPA guidelines on taking evidence so soft law can help a lot in standardizing the process and we have seen that all these processes have ultimately helped to reduce the burden on the arbitral tribunal to make detailed orders so what we can do is take the best practices give the parties to either agree or disagree on and any of the aspects of that they can create exceptions but we can try and use that as a as a minimum standard for applying in the arbitration process so in my experience the soft law has been a very important tool we can adopt anyone which the party is like or the tribunal can suggest and the parties can accept so it's not then the normally what we have seen is that the arbitrators themselves incorporated those rules in their procedural orders and that has helped a lot in standardizing and streamline the use of technology in international arbitration. It's a jam like he has discussed and we've all been discussing how technology can help in selection of arbitrators. So I think one usually we select arbitrators broadly by saying oh I know Tejas Karya he'll make a good arbitrator but I think where technology can really and that's a fact so I'm not retracting from that fact I'm saying that subject matter and the expertise of the decision maker or the potential arbitrator I think becomes very important because more and more commercial cases high value cases with a lot of technicalities involved go to arbitration there could be technology related issues as well. So it's very important to have a link between the subject matter of the dispute and the expertise and the experience of the arbitrator and I think here technology can play a very important role in giving some kind of understanding of behavioural patterns a previous track record which is more data based, evidence based, more scientific than what is based on on perception and I think that becomes very important because informed decision making improves the outcomes and that's again important because you don't want to want to be vulnerable by virtue of the fact that the tribunal did not have the expertise to deal with it and I see that a lot nowadays when you have tribunals which have judicial members technical members they kind of balance out but where you have very technical disputes which arise and you have let's say just judicial members but they may not be familiar with that nature of that kind of dispute a large part of the time just goes in trying to try and bring them up to speed and that's not always the best way of doing it because you have such a vast array of available very competent proven expert arbitrators and therefore use of technology can again sharpen that process and it'll then move more efficiently and consume less time because you're not educating the person the person comes fully knowing and being aware of that subject matter so I think technology here can be a real aid and a boon and can benefit a lot. I just take things forward I remember that one of my own wanted to do a wanted to engage a lawyer so I told him that this person is good he said no sir give me two names in a district course for a trial I gave him the two names he just went to the website saw who had filed more cases he says that sir I've seen that he has filed 50 cases this year and defended criminal trials and he has defended 10 so I think we should go with a person who has defended 50 I thought it's your choice so we just don't talk off to arbitrators or these times the people have become so smart that they also know how to choose the lawyer that's the point I just want to prove. We are very quantity based and less quality based they told more so if you write 10 pages in your answer script you'll get more marks because you've written 10 pages versus two so we have to again move to that more qualitative dimension than the I have a slightly different view there because the artificial intelligence can definitely bring in qualitative aspect to this is not about numbers but it about the combination of the data which goes in and you can come to a conclusion that which is the best person who is available to sit as an arbitrator and what is the nature of the experience that person has so that is something we are going to go into and there are tools which are getting developed and in future it will be very easy for parties to select the arbitrator who is expert available and have a particular bent of mind to do it it's not about bias it about experience and expertise which will help to do it because your arbitration is as good as your arbitrator and if you don't select your arbitrator correctly there are very less chances because we are going to move towards a situation where courts are not going to interfere into the fact finding by the arbitrator and that is your last first and last chance to prove your facts so it is always helpful to select your arbitrator carefully and technology can be a great tool to select the best possible arbitrator. I agree I agree with Tejas wholeheartedly in fact just to share a couple of anecdotes on this point because I think it's so interesting and I thought if I said it might end up being a bit controversial but I'm glad Tejas got it off it gives me at least a leg into at least saying a couple of these points so one we have found very interesting is R is the global arbitration review they have an arbitrator toolkit and essentially if you think about it in very crude terms it's almost like a trip advisor review of arbitrators so people can give feedback it's anonymous but it's by international it's by members of the international arbitration community and you can essentially say I guess to a certain extent what you want to obviously you'll have to be within confines of making sure the language is parliamentary and it's not something that is derogatory but leaving those issues to one side you do get feedback when you actually if you're a member and you subscribe to it and you want to appoint this particular individual as an arbitrator you can see what people have to say about this person how many stars they've brought now again that might seem very provocative if you're an arbitrator you might not really like the idea that there's a profile online where people get to say whatever they want about you and rate you but you know that comes with I think the domain that you're in and the other thing just going back I think this dovetails quite nicely what Tejas said there is AI is actually very powerful so apart from you know machine learning and deep learning that we have found ourselves in inextricably intertwined with there is a project which was started in Stanford Law School many years ago in California and the idea was to provide by way of an algorithm AI that would be able to give a predictive analysis of how judges are likely to decide certain cases so Stanford in that particular way wanted to see specifically IP pattern infringed cases because you know they're the same test it's the same legal analysis and essentially what this this program does it's based on machine learning it's been around for several years and people can obviously subscribe into it but it has reviewed all of the reports and judgments of you know I don't know for a number of years and it then is able to predict depending on the facts and circumstances of your case if you are before a certain judge for you know an IP pattern infringement case what is the likely outcome of that case how is the judge going to decide now that might seem very controversial it might seem like you know that means the judge is biased or you know that he has a proclivity to decide one particular way that is possible but then that again is a part of human nature as humans we are likely to operate based on our experiences and biases and there's no reason why AI should not be able to capture that and leverage on that point so you know there are various different ways in which I think technology can assist in selecting arbitrators a lot of them just so that you're all aware not all of them are today considered mainstream and a lot of them tend to be unorthodox and quite a bit controversial. So once we are talking of the arbitrators and all I will ask Mr. Jan since his take a question which has come on the platform itself he said that I understand that the arbitral awards and the names of the arbitrators are accordingly not and all awards are not available in the public domain limiting the knowledge and expertise of the arbitrators how do you gain that like what you are saying there cannot be any star ranking etc we are not like a swiggy or an amazon to state show that how many people have actually ordered how many have been delivered and how many were satisfied with the services so how do you create and how do you determine and understand I will ask Mr. Jan to share his views again yeah because sorry you were not you were not fully audible so I the question is on the chat but otherwise I'm saying he says that normally the arbitral awards and the names of the arbitrators are not available in the public domain as such so how do you determine the knowledge and expertise of the arbitrator like we were discussing about no I think two two two things happen that look one at one level we say that but at the moment you file a section 34 there's a court order or there's an appeal on the supreme court you broadly know who is who's given the award and you know which which direction the award goes second nothing to beat word of mouth or as Ashish was saying have a arbitrator's toolkit with the feedback response so I think practitioners will never have this handicap that merely because it's a private process everyone broadly knows you know what to expect from whom and then of course is the whole technology part you know behavior predictive etc which give you a greater accuracy into what kind of decision-making can be expected from a particular type of arbitrator which is why sometimes they always say oh how important is to have a proper commercial arbitration bar because that's where you exchange notes so we always discuss with each other what kind of experience that we had with A, B or C and vice versa and that feedback is very good also remember most arbitrators in India happen to be retired judges so they already come with many years in the high court and some of them years in the supreme court so that broadly gives you a good sense of what kind of decisions they've given you know which side of the line they fall are they commercially savvy not commercially savvy some people are more technically minded some people are more niggardly with giving damages so I think that kind of information is fairly handily available as I said with practitioners and given the entire ecosystem from when they started practicing as judges and then orders in which awards have been challenged so there's enough information there but it has to ultimately remain private it's not like a court proceeding which is open to everybody so I think that balance has to be maintained and on a lighter note to the last question like you have bright selection we perhaps have to have then arbitration selections also like that so like a shadi.com you may have to have someday arbitration.com or something so you know people will give oh he's a good suitor to my case or not. Normally for the professionals they say like any professional is like a bottle of perfume the moment you open your arguments the moment you deliver people come to know that it's a perfume or not and what are the confidentiality and confidentiality and data security issues while using technology and arbitration because a lot of people feel that you're exchanging everything just taking the strings forward like if we have all been appearing in the virtual court hearings sometimes a lawyer shares the some judgment of the thing you know that this lawyer has good notes or good judgments a lot of people from that group itself download and keep it for themselves so that is an important aspect and things have actually started moving faster because now the written statement the petitions are being sent by emails not only in the arbitration but in other courts also and it has leap forwarded in the right perspective but me that as it may we will take to the confidentiality and the data security issue I would ask it's a joke to give his insights so this time he becomes the not the juicy part of the sandwich but he becomes the part of the bread this way I'm grateful I should become the bread it's no point being a kebab all the time so the starting point that I think would be helpful when you're dealing with data security and confidentiality concerns particularly if you're looking at it from an international operation perspective we look at best practices and one soft law measure that I have found instructive in the Ika New York City bar CPR protocol on cyber security and international operations this was released in 2020 and the protocol aims to provide a framework for determining reasonable information security measures for individual arbitration matters and increasing awareness about information security and international arbitration the issue becomes I think a lot more relevant these days because there are a lot more participants that are involved in international operations so you've got a number of third party service providers who are you know assisting with translation transcription then you've also got parties who have chosen to have third party virtual hearing service providers now they're located anywhere globally because you know you can do a virtual hearing anywhere these days then you need supervision of these service providers and a lot of times surprisingly enough not all of these auxiliary services have a you know a confidentiality agreement or a non-disclosure agreement I've always found that very surprising but you know given how sophisticated and how legally compliant most lawyers like to be it is particularly surprising that a number of parties still decide to engage such auxiliary services without having a proper confidentiality or a non-disclosure agreement in place so that's one issue the other issue I think again is more about awareness I still am it never ceases to surprise me how basic basic things that we could do to prevent you know unauthorized access we don't they just do diligence it's common sense but you know as someone succinctly said one day that you know common sense is anything but common so the things that I'm talking about is you know having a proper password protection you know not using one two three four five six then obviously you know a secure internet connection another issue that has come up recently is how do you ensure that you are using a secure local data serve these sort of issues are actually now becoming quite tricky a lot of the times they're elevated to national security considerations particularly in countries like India and China and you know it can actually become a problem particularly when you're dealing with cloud-based services and so a lot of these servers if they're not hosted in the local jurisdiction and if there's unauthorized access there's a leak or a hack sometimes the the innocent party has no real remedy it's very difficult to try and figure out where these data servers lie and what you can do as a mutual recourse against them so those sort of things I think are things to be concerned about what I have seen in a number of procedural orders nowadays that have been issued by the tribunal and this is this is something that we certainly do suggest to tribunals is to have a provision leaving aside what's there in the arbitration act of the local jurisdiction where the seat is situated leaving aside what the arbitral institution rules provide for within the procedural order I think it's important to enshrine the basic principle of confidentiality data security concerns and also another issue is the procedural order we we at least specifically do request the tribunal to specify the allocation of liability in the event of privacy breaches by the parties and costs and sanctions that can be imposed so as to deter non-compliance by one of the parties you know a famous case that comes to mind is that of Croatia and Slovenia this was an ad hoc you know interstate arbitration it related to a dispute over maritime boundaries between Croatia and Slovenia and you know Croatian intelligence was able by way of illegal wiretapping and document leaks show that the arbitrator appointed by Slovenia was in you know dealing with in a very unauthorized expatriate way with Slovenia's council and it came almost verbatim word by word in a transcript what was said over a call what were the documents shared and you know how the Slovenian council wanted the arbitrator for Slovenia to deal with the points you know when they had these conferences interstate between the tribunal members and obviously that created a big brouhaha it was a massive debacle because it had international repercussions you know Croatia then decided to abandon the arbitration saying they would never get a fair trial so my point here is you know given particularly today with the number of data leaks wiki leaks that we see all around us it's particularly important that a tribunal pays due attention to data security considerations and the principle of confidentiality i know and this is quite interesting recently the stock home chamber of commerce they revised their rules and one of the things that they have done is that they have adopted measures by which you can now upload documents in relation to your matter on a platform that's solely controlled exclusively controlled by the arbitral institution rather than let's say a third party cloud-based storage system like Dropbox or something so you know i think those are the sort of issues that people are now becoming aware of back in the day even four five years four five years ago i think it was plain plainly very common to use things like Dropbox uh google drive i think people are becoming slowly a bit more circumspect about using those given how prone they are to these sort of uh unauthorized use and access and and leaks uh one of the questions is back about the deep on the on the chat box it says these days technology uh can be used to analyze complex data to find out the root cause of issues and perform data analysis should arbitrators be more keen to appoint experts for data analysis and give expert reports on tribunals what is your take on that Mr Tejas so of course now with the use of technology you can do complex data analysis and come to the conclusion which is humanly not possible so experts have their own limitations so if you appoint an expert the expert will go to a level of their experience and give the opinion whereas data analysis is quite different so if you want to do a valuation for example and understand that what is the real value as a growing concern for a company on a discounted cash flow method you have an algorithm where you put the data into it and you can come to the conclusion or you can also come into a situation where in oil and gas funds you can have an expert to understand that what is the parameters which are involved where you could have gone found in hydrocarbon and those are the complex data analysis which we have seen that the terminals have been getting benefit by use of technology and and that is something we should definitely deploy uh as in when it is available uh also audio visual as Mr Jain said the arbitrators sometimes are not able to visualize the real problem for example you are having a construction dispute and we were doing an arbitration for for constructing a tunnel for for railway bridge and it was very easy for arbitrators to see the real pictures and videos to understand how the problem was and how the breach was committed so technological tools and data analysis is the thing of future and whether we like it or not the things are going to get simple and the truth is going to come out so the technology if it is put in a proper perspective is going to change the way we do the data analysis and expert opinion as far as the arbitration is concerned and it's it's going to be for good only and nobody would be able to challenge it because if you have a clear fact with backup with the data analysis but it all depends on what data you are putting in and the outcome would be dependent on that so the raw data which goes into the analytics uh is also very important and there has to be a check and balance on that because one party it gives wrong data then your analysis may not be correct so technology also has its own limitation but technology can definitely go beyond the human ability to analyze the data so that's the pros and cons of using uh technology for data analytics here's your right key product that as you all speak of that the technology is a good seven but it's not a good master so we all have to we can use it as a tool but we cannot solely depend upon it I will ask Mr. Jain also to take one of the questions it says uh would you think this is this question is by uh Angad Kocher would you think that the arbitral institutions should provide a channel for practitioners on a no-name basis or otherwise to provide feedback so that the common issues raised by the parties and arbitrators can be identified and addressed institutionally? Oh absolutely and I think actually I alluded to that as well that you know when you make a toolkit it's really based on stakeholder feedback and that goes back to the earlier issue which you raised that even if it's a form of private settlement yet there's enough information available going forward for people to make informed choices so I think there are channels and if not there should definitely be channels and that's really important because real life experiences count the most it's practice versus theory and therefore I think this is very very important and B one has to take it in a positive way particularly I think issues of time availability I think we'll all agree on the panel that the one thing which one never knows till you're in the midst of the arbitral process is about time availability so dates go a very long way so in the declaration everybody says we have time but when it comes to giving dates suddenly you know dates run by months and months so these things I think can be exchanged and I'm sure Mr. Kocher himself can contribute largely by way of giving his valuable feedback from his experience as well so he can practice what he proposes to ask us. Asad says how safe is the online arbitration including data safety and security of clients personal information from cyber attack by softwares like bigas. See the risk is always there isn't when you use technology the risk is there but there are ways and means to protect the confidential information and now confidentiality is part of our legislation we amended our act in 2019 to bring in confidentiality which puts obligation on the arbitral cabinet parties institution everybody so this confidentiality is paramount and that's the virtue of the arbitration because everything is public in the port and arbitration is confidential but just because you use technology you should not be put in a situation where anything can get into your confidential information and there is no remedy available to you because argument is very difficult to find out who has reached the data and who has leaked the data because it's very cumbersome to find it and that's where the cyber security protocol which Ashish was mentioning in 2020 has come up with 14 principles and if you follow those 14 principles that solves it's very simple way to protect your confidential data and we need to safeguard it you can have means where you have dual authentication so you have a password and then you have a link which comes to your email idea or your phone you have to click to get into the system if you are storing data you should have the dedicated servers and not use the cloud-based servers or the service providers do not ensure the authentication encryption is another thing where you can protect it all these are very important tools and I'm sure there are technologies who can reach into it but the only way we can protect is to follow certain safeguards and principles to avoid data breach and if at all there is a data breach then you should be able to know it is happening and you can plug it very quickly so those are the things which we need to take help of the technology service providers to use that and institutions can play a very major role in providing such kind of assistance because you need a large technological platform to store this data even the video hearings now the problem is that there are hours and hours of video recording which is happening now who is recording normally we don't allow parties to record it but in terms of transcript service if you have a transcript service which is not live and they record your transcript and then then provide the written transcript then also how it is to be kept how many months it is to be kept and to be destroyed is something it has to be written in a proper protocol or in the time of entering into the procedural hearings that parties should agree how they want to use the technology in terms of all these aspects in terms of documents in terms of procedural hearings oral hearings and the final hearings and confidential information the last questions will be a lot of technology and COVID what do you feel that this will continue or there will be we will go back to the physical what are the things whether this technology will continue or how do you take things forward yeah Mr Chukh so as I said earlier I think this technology is here to stay you can't fight it I think what is important to have safeguards so I can see a situation where we'll have a hybrid system as we go forward we will have a system for example if you're looking at international operations where the procedural hearings even an emergency arbitration if you're looking for emergency intro relief all of that would I think on a regular basis be conducted by virtual hearings by videoconference but it could be that you when you get through an entry hearing which tends to be a lot more extensive you need to hear witnesses and there needs to be due deliberation it could be argued that you know at that point you certainly need the physical hearing so I think you know we're not certainly going back to pre-pandemic I don't think we're going back to 2019 at all I think we can only go forward from here but as long as we have safeguards I think we will be able to at least ensure that both parties are able to not only deal with their arbitration in an expeditious and efficient way but also that due process is is considered and taken into account Mr Chukh I haven't reminded what we were saying otherwise in law we sometimes say that don't put the hands of the clock back so we can't put the hands of the clock back to what we were and the only positive is that whatever use is there so we'll ask Mr Jain what has been his experience or does he feel that do we go back back to square one I entirely agree with Ashish that as we are in anyway headed into a digital world as I put it this is the direction and the trajectory I think it could be coexistence or a hybrid or a dual mode where both would be available and this can only go from strength to strength because with all the protocols and guidelines in place in practice directions which we have and which will come based on user and stakeholder experience that process can be further strengthened and streamlined so that as we said the rules of the game are fair and some of the concerns which have been addressed are examples that Ashish and Tejas gave they will show you over a period of time either get redressed all there will be challenges and court ruling but I think both are here I mean this is definitely not going to go away but equally we will have critical hearings as well so both will coexist and I think it will then depend on for example if it's just a procedural hearing everyone may agree for it to be virtual but if it's recording of evidence or you know arguments everyone may agree to have a physical hearing so there will be more choice on the table. Tejas Mr. Jain says it will be inclusive as well as exclusive so one question which Subit has posted how do you how to go about the witnesses cross examination and the aspect of human touch with respect to briefing and getting witnesses ready for the cross at the same time making sure that one is not coaching or tutoring the witness. Yeah so it's very easy to manage in the sense that even if you have virtual hearings you can have multiple devices so that you can see the witness and who is present in the room in terms of not allowing witness to have any other digital device like mobile and the physical that is something personal hearing physical hearing but to some extent we have done number of cross examination and it's easy to see the demeanor also on the screen so if you have a screen and you are paying attention of course there is a element of cutting after a some point of time but it's not that bad that you cannot judge the person's demeanor and of course in commercial arbitration we have seen that most of the documents are sufficient to run the arbitration we don't heavily rely on oral evidence and as far as expert is concerned basically they are giving their opinion so their demeanor doesn't make too much of a difference because whatever is there in the report we are only cross examining on technical aspect so that yes of course human touch is good for cross examination but it's not that important for commercial arbitration in our experience so we have I think we have taken all the important aspects which we could have and it's a pleasure connecting with all those speakers and the source person sharing the insights it was a pleasure connecting with all three of you on this platform and I will ask Mr. Jain to share his insights before we part for the day and you will definitely connect with all lots and lots of information on this so it was a great pleasure connecting Mr. Ashish, Mr. Gopal Jain and Mr. Tejas who was the connecting point as I say all connect he was the connecting point all roads lead to Mr. Kavya I'm saying as I say that it's all got no traffic jams so you have made all the roads join to make it a line that's true always a pleasure thank you thank you everyone thank you thank you