COMPARISONS OF CONSTRUCTION DISPUTE RESOLUTION SYSTEMS IN TAIWAN AND VIETNAM

Abstract

Taiwan and Vietnam are two neighbored countries in Asian area with similarity features. The exchanged relationship has been improving after the Investment Assurance Agreement was signed in 1993. Construction industry in the two countries always plays an important role in the nation economy proven by significant achievements in recent years. However, solving disputes in construction industry is a big issue in the two countries because of its specific features. Once dispute occurs, it can overturn a project and lead to complicated situation, time overrun, increased cost, and broke-down relationship between parties. Learning experientialced lessons from other countries is a good way to develop dispute resolution mechanism, and through that to spread the construction environment to foreign investors. How can the two countries Taiwan and Vietnam resolve dispute in the construction process and what lessons the two countries can learn from each other? Therefore, the objectives of the thesis are to find out the similarities and the differences between Taiwan and Vietnam, and based on the comparisons, each country can learn from each other and introduces the construction industry to foreign investors. In Taiwan, a general system of dispute resolving is that negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation. The statistical data shows that in the past, most dispute cases were resolved through litigation while the remained cases were referred to arbitration. However, these two methods cost too much time and money. The establishment of Complaint Review Board for Government Procurement (CRBGP) based on the Government Procurement Act (GPA 1998) to address complaints related government, mediate contract disputes has proven considerable success, and has been becoming a preferred choice. Recently, there four methods used to settle dispute . Iin Vietnam, negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation. , tThe government also heightens the important role of mediation. At the local community, groups of non-professional mediators are assigned to be in charge of resolving dispute. However, these cases are mostly civil and family disputes, as for construction dispute resolution by means of mediation is still limited. Therefore, most of the construction disputes in Vietnam are referred to arbitration or litigation. It is worth noting that arbitration system in Vietnam is nowadays usually taken as an alternative for dispute resolution, and Vietnam International Arbitration Centre (VIAC) is the most famous among them. The methodology of the research will be based on the data collection and analysis. Then two case studies in Taiwan and Vietnam would ill elucidatee the issue through comparisons the realities of construction dispute resolution. The main results ascertained in this study are as follows. Construction dispute resolution systems in Taiwan and Vietnam have a lot of similarities as well as many differences. Number of dispute occurring in construction industry in the two countries has been increasing quickly year to year rising from similar reasons. Both in Taiwan and Vietnam, the system of construction dispute resolution is almost the same. Research finding identified that dispute mediation system in Taiwan is really effective tool for government to deal with disputes. The analysis also identified that joining in the New York Convention would help the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Through this comparison, hopefully it will bring to foreign investors a general overview a bout construction environment in Taiwan and Vietnam, and each country could learn from the other.