INTRODUCTION
Disputes arising from business transactions is a daily occurrence in the business world, It is even more common now that technological advancement is favouring the setting up of many small businesses and freelancing professionals. This has created the need for an affordable legal system that is affordable and easily accessible by any individual that would require such service.
We all know that not everyone or organizations can afford to secure the services of a legal expert in the current legal system. This is even worse for small businesses or individuals disputing small amounts that can't even cover for the legal fees that they'll be required to pay should they decide to secure the services of a legal practitioner to help fight for their rights. This limitation is making so many small businesses and individuals lose funds on businesses that they engaged in with dubious individuals or corporations that refused to keep to their end of the business agreement because they know that such individuals or businesses don't have the means to fight them for their dishonest activities.
This high legal fees coupled with the stress of appearing in various time wasting court sessions is preventing most small businesses and individuals from seeking legal help in their various business disputes. These are the challenges that kleros has come to resolve. Kleros has come to give both individuals and organizations easy access to legal services at a very affordable rate.
WHAT IS KLEROS?
Kleros is a decentralized platform that connects parties disputing a business transaction to the right juries that will help in resolving such dispute at a very moderate fee. Kleros grants disputing parties access to legal experts and the right to fair hearing based on their contractual agreement.
HOW THE KLEROS SYSTEM WORKS
Kleros operates a legal system where the court is divided into various categories. Each category is known as a subcourt and a subcourt simply refer to court peculiar to certain business areas. On the kleros platform there's the general court and under the General court there is the e-commerce, transport and insurance courts. These courts still have other subcourts under them. the subcourts are the various sectors in the business world and legal experts will be selected by kleros to look into a dispute based on the subcourt selected by the disputing parties.
Individuals or organizations that want to go into a business transaction can opt into kleros and set the conditions for their business agreement. These conditions will serve as guide to the kleros experts that will be consulted to resolve any possible dispute that may arise from the business. Three necessary actions users of the kleros services are expected to take when going into a business transaction with the kleros platform are given below.
They are required to choose the number of legal experts they would want to look into their case should a dispute occur. The number of legal experts once specified, will be selected randomly by kleros based on their expertise In the choosen subcourt.
They are required to choose a subcourt. The subcourt will be used to determine the type of jurors that will be contacted to resolve any likely dispute that may occur.
They are required to choose possible outcomes for meeting or failing to meet conditions in the contract. These outcomes are actions that will be taken when certain contract conditions are met.
After all these have been done, kleros will now secure the agreement by using smart contract and escrow all funds for the business transaction until contract conditions are met by both parties. If the contract conditions are fulfilled by both parties, the smart contract is initiated and all parties will be given what's due to them. But if there's a dispute of any sort regarding the business agreement, legal experts in the choosen subcourt will be consulted and they will be required to deliberate in the dispute by looking into the business agreement and outcomes entered into by both parties individually. Once they are through with their deliberations, they all will be required to pass a vote separately on the possible outcome that each of them think should be adopted. The party that has the highest vote will be adjudged the winner of the dispute.
HOW WILL KLEROS ENSURE FAIRNESS IN ITS SYSTEM
Experts in the kleros platform will all be paid a token for their services. The more credible the votes of an expert are in regard to the assigned disputes, the more the tokens such experts will get and vice versa. Also, experts with a high percentage of incoherent votes will be made to lose some of their tokens to experts with more coherent votes. This measure is put in place to make the system more credible and trustworthy. Experts will also be selected at random and no disputing party will be able to know which experts are handling their case or have access to expert's information on the platform. So everyone in the system is assured of fairness.
SOME ADVANTAGES THAT KLEROS WILL BRING TO THE BUSINESS WORLD
Kleros will be able to change the way individuals and corporations in business deal with each other because it will help create more sincerity and genuineness when conducting a business transaction. Below are some of the advantages that kleros will bring to various individuals and organizations in various business sectors.
Small business organizations and individuals can be able to go into business contracts more confidently because they are sure that kleros will be able to offer them the protection they need should the other party decides to breach the business agreement.
Many more business individuals and corporations will be able to access top notch legal services because of the affordable nature of the kleros system.
Large E-commerce websites such as eBay, amazon and their likes will be able to utilize kleros to resolve the daily disputes arising among companies and individuals or organizations offering products and services on their platforms.
The fear of transacting businesses with organizations and individuals from other parts of the world will be eliminated because the Kleros system is not location based. Any individual or organization can gain access to its services from any part of the world. So geographical location is not a limitation to anyone that would want to secure their contract by using the kleros platform.
Kleros arbitration fee is very low when compared to that of the traditional legal system and as such, every individual and corporation regardless of their size and financial strength can be able to afford the kleros legal services in securing their business transactions. Etc.
USE CASES
Case 1
Jeff is a freelance writer that is resident in the U.S. Jeff was contacted by One Collins, a blogger that is resident in the .UK to deliver 30 quality articles for a period of one month to collins' blog. They agreed that Jeff would be paid $5 per article and he is required to produce an article a day for 30 days. Part of the agreement entered was that, should Jeff produce the first 10 article for the first ten days, he would be paid 40% of the total agreed amount and should he produce the next 10 making it all together 20, he will be paid another 40% and the last 10% would be paid once he produces the remaining 10.
Jeff produces the first 10 and was paid as promised. He continued the other 10 and was already in the 8th article when Collins contacted him that he won't be needing his services any longer. He had already published the 8 articles on Collins' blog and there's no way for him to get either his articles or the agreed money from Collins that is far away in the UK.
Had Jeff secured his agreement with Collins on the kleros platform, he would have been saved from such dubious stunt that Collins had already planned to pull on him prior to the execution of the business.
Use case 2
Emmanuel is about to open a small shop that he's going to use to sell electronics. He researched online and made an order from a company to deliver the product to him in his country. He doesn't know much about the company but because of the good reviews on the company's website, he decided to trust them.
The agreement was that the moment he pays for the products, he would receive his products in 3 weeks. Emmanuel had already paid for the products and it took over three months before the company delivered his product to him in his country. Had he utilized kleros in entering into an agreement with the company, he would have been able to claim damages for such delays or get his money refunded back to him the moment it was discovered that the company couldn't keep to the agreement.
CONCLUSION
Kleros is a great platform that has come to give anyone that will utilize it confidence when going into a business transaction with anyone. This is a great relief to individuals and organizations that couldn't secure legal services for their business transactions prior to this time. This is a very welcome development to the business world.
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