Legislation Creating Business Courts Clears Committee in Okla.

House GOP legislation that increases common sense practices in Oklahoma’s judicial system by creating special business courts passed a vote of the House Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, the state House of Representatives reported.

House Bill 2106, by House Speaker Lance Cargill (R-Harrah), would create a specialized court docket to handle commercial and corporate disputes.

HB 2106 is a key plank of the Entrepreneurial Society platform, part of the 2007 House Republican Year of Ideas Agenda. The measure passed committee with bipartisan support.

Cargill said the complex nature of most business cases, whether commercial or corporate, requires expertise and familiarity with specific areas of business law, creating a significant burden on regular trial courts. A specialized business docket will enhance the consistency, predictability and accuracy of decisions on business law issues.

“It’s about looking out for small business owners instead of punishing them with burdensome bureaucracy,” Cargill said. “And it’s about promoting a legal system that makes it possible for clear, fair verdicts to be passed down in a timely fashion. Small business owners have created a majority of the jobs in this state. We owe them this much.”

HB 2106 now moves forward for a vote of the full House of Representatives.

The 2007 House Republican agenda aims to build on landmark reforms passed within the past two years – reforms that have touched nearly every area of state government and are already saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year.

Those reforms include the two largest tax cut packages in Oklahoma history and significant reforms of the state’s workers’ compensation system.

Source: Oklahoma House of Representatives