An international tribunal, dedicated to the settlement of complex and controversial financial disputes throughout the world, will open its doors in the Dutch city of The Hague on Monday.

The tribunal goes by the name of PRIME Finance, which stands for Panel of Recognised International Market Experts in Finance. It is being set up with the support of the City of The Hague and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. It will be housed in The Hague’s Peace Palace and will be officially opened by the Netherlands’ current Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager.

With a team of almost 100 judges and other international legal and market experts, the tribunal will settle differences involving complex financial products. The tribunal says it will operate on the basis of arbitration or mediation. In the case of arbitration, the financial institutions that make use of the tribunal will be bound to comply with its rulings.

2008 financial crisis
The tribunal began to take shape in October 2010, when experts from the financial world and the legal profession in The Hague got together. They concluded that the 2008 financial crisis made clear the need for a body that is capable of making authoritative rulings in complex financial disputes.

PRIME Finance will be housed in the Peace Palace, which is also home to the United Nations International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The latter handles disputes between states and has the power to settle conflicts between countries and organisations at the request of the parties involved.

(dd/rk)