The people involved in a mediation process need to be very careful about the contents of the contracts, says Cristian Pârvan, the secretary general of the Association of Romanian Businesspeople (AOAR), who went on to say: "There are many types of situations. For example, the moment the crisis began, many international companies terminated the contracts with the Romanian companies, because they were not drawn up the way they should have been, and as a result, the big fish killed the little fish. It's a matter of power".
The representative of the business sector also said that legislation is very important in the mediation processes.
"We have been asking the Ministry of Justice for years to announce how many commercial lawsuits exist and their duration", he said. "We have a lot of work to do for mediation to become a truly useful instrument".
According to Cristian Pârvan, since 2009, the AOAR has been asking for the creation of a public mediator for the lawsuits between banks and companies, but the response he got from the banking system has been that this is not possible, for various reasons.
"The banking system has been reluctant to conduct mediation with companies", he concluded, and he claimed that there are people who are tempted to transform mediation into a routine procedure, "the idea of mediation which is extremely valuable, could be in great danger".
Cristian Pârvan considers that specialization in mediation according to different lines of business is needed, and that making it mandatory represents a loss for the business sector and a threat for mediators.
The representative of the AOAR says that mediation is a very useful instrument, which poses numerous benefits, as well as many threats which need to be solved, for it to become viable.
Over the last few years, there has been an increase in the number of customers who have filed lawsuits against banks due to the abusive terms of the loan contracts.