Commercial Court Ordinance not just another law

Many existing laws of Bangladesh area legacy of the long past colonial era. Those include the penal code, civil and criminal procedural codes, contract law and company law. Though there is a single bench in the High Court Division of the Supreme Court dealing with maritime law, there is no special court system dedicated, for instance, to resolving commercial litigations. Against this backdrop, Bangladesh is going to have its first dedicated commercial court system. In this connection, Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed informed the Press following a seminar held recently that valuable inputs in this regard have been obtained from the development partners, legal professionals, academicians and the business community. So, it is expected that based on those agenda, the final draft of the Commercial Court Ordinance 2025 would be prepared soon and submitted to the government for its implementation.

The need for commercial courts that offer a specialised mechanism for resolving business disputes efficiently cannot be overstated. For those are vital for increasing investor confidence to ensure more foreign investment in the economy with attendant economic growth. In fact, the traditional courts are overburdened with a large number of cases still pending. This causes inordinate delays in resolving disputes relating to trade and commerce. On this issue, it could be leant that as of March 2025, more than 25,000 loan recovery cases under the Artha Rin Adalat Ain (Money Loan Court Act), or Act, for short, remain unresolved. Notably, the said Act was enacted in parliament in 2003 by repealing the previous Artha Rin Adalat 1990, especially to expedite recovery of defaulted loans with banks and other financial institutions. In exercise of the Section 4 of the Act, the Money Loan Courts (MLCs) were established to handle cases involving loan defaults. Obviously, the objective was to reduce the backlog of such financial disputes so that the efficiency of the financial institutions in question could be improved. But seeing that the MLCs are still burdened with such a huge number of pending cases, thanks to defaulting borrowers' filing writs in the HC to contest those and often obtaining stay orders in their (loan defaulters') favour, the justification for reforming the prevailing financial dispute resolution system hardly needs further explaining.

Hence is the move for establishing  commercial courts, of which the key pillars would include summary judgments to discourage frivolous cases, a two-tier threshold system to improve Small and Medium Enterprises' (SMEs') accessibility and structured settlement mechanisms. There is no question that the Draft Commercial Court Ordinance reflects a strong commitment to establishing a new covenant between commerce and justice towards speedy delivery of justice, introduction of expertise in handing disputes relating to finance, trade and commerce and ensuring integrity of the justice delivery system. It is reassuring that the development partners including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the European Union (EU) and others have extended support and provided valuable inputs in framing the draft commercial ordinance. It is hoped that such cooperation from all quarters concerned would continue to develop a robust and efficient commercial legal system here.

While appreciating efforts towards building a dedicated legal framework for expeditious resolution of disputes of commercial origin, a word of caution is necessary. It is that laws are framed often with the best of intentions. But history provides ample proof that good laws in themselves are no guarantee for getting the intended positive changes in a system. As always, it is the execution of the laws and the political will behind it that ultimately matter. So, the emphasis should be on building the necessary political consensus for the Draft Commercial Court Ordinance 2025 implementable and effective.