Competition Law in Tourism

558 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM agreement, he shall agree to initiate the arbitration procedure and order its notification to the parties (the resolution period shall be thirty days from the following day on which the competent Board receives the request or its correction); If the existence of a previous arbitration agreement is not recorded or it is not valid, within the same period the request for arbitration will be transferred to the respondent, indicating that it has been admitted for processing and granting him a period of fifteen days for to accept this instrument and the previous mediation, if applicable. If appropriate, this also applies to responding to the request by formulating the allegations and presenting the documents or proposing the evidence that he deems convenient to assert his rights. Once the time limit has elapsed, if the respondent does not reply, the filing of the proceedings shall be ordered, notifying the parties; if the respondent does reply, the procedure shall be deemed to have commenced on the date of admission of the relevant acceptance into the Consumer Arbitration Board, and its chairman shall nevertheless issue an express agreement to initiate the procedure. Once these formalities have been completed, the arbitration panel will be appointed. Article 40 of the Royal Decree is particularly interesting for our study, as it provides that in the sectorial arbitrations that by their nature require immediate processing (conflicts in the tourism sector would fall within this scope), the parties may be summoned for a hearing, without further processing, provided that the admissibility of the request and the validity of the arbitration agreement have been verified and the appointment of the arbitrator(s), knowledgeable about the conflict, has been made. However, when the Consumer Arbitration Board that will listen to the arbitration does not have a list of specialised arbitrators accredited before it, it will request it from the Consumer Arbitration Board of a higher territorial scope that does have it, in order make an appointment for the dispute among the accredited specialised arbitrators included therein. The arbitration body shall direct the procedure and may urge the parties to conciliate. Each and every one of the written pleadings, documents and other instruments that one of the parties provides to the arbitrators shall be forwarded to the other party, and the documents, expert opinions and other evidentiary instruments on which the body may rely to come to a decision shall likewise be made available to the parties. Before the hearing process is completed, the parties may extend or modify the request or the response, which may be raised by the claimed counterclaim against the claimant, and it will be inadmissible if it concerns a matter that is not subject to consumer arbitration or if it has no connection with the claims

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