The Legal Affairs Committee of Saeima during the last week's sitting decided to suspend the Economic Affairs Court before the third reading in the Saeima, therefore AmCham and the Foreign Investors' Council in Latvia (FICIL) addressed stakeholders and recalled the importance of enhancing the efficiency and quality of the judiciary by ensuring further specialization of courts and judges in certain categories of cases.

Zinta Jansons, President of AmCham Latvia emphasized: "AmCham calls for the ongoing work to improve the judicial system by introducing a specialized court for resolving commercial disputes. Such a court, would be needed to handle cases in complex economic matters in an efficient and qualitative manner. This has become a necessity today more than ever to restore Latvia's economy after the crisis and boost investor confidence."

A specialized court would solve disputes related to, for example, legal protection process, large-scale claims in commercial disputes, application of the provisions of the Financial Collateral Law on claims based on violations of the norms of the Competition Law, etc. It is clear that addressing these issues requires specific knowledge in financial instruments, capital markets, Competition Law, investment protection, economics and finance; therefore, we believe that court specialisation in certain case categories is one way to ensure this. 

Māris Vainovskis, FICIL Investment Protection and Court Efficiency work group leader, reminds: "The opinion of entrepreneurs and judicial system professionals about the need for specialization and its positive impact on efficient and professional resolution of commercial disputes is unified. It is necessary to work together to achieve the best solution. In the light of international issues in resolving investment protection disputes within the European Union, the Latvian state must ensure the specialization of courts in this area as well." 

The state should be able to ensure efficient and professional handling of commercial court proceedings within a reasonable period of time; therefore, FICIL and AmCham hope that discussions will continue to find the best solution in the interests of the state's economy and investment protection. 

AmCham has previously expressed support for the establishment of a new specialized Economic Affairs court and urged the Judicial Council to contribute its knowledge and experience to the successful implementation of such a court.