Round-robin allocation

Once an investor's complaint has been through the market infrastructure institution's own review and failed to settle, it has to go to one of the ODR Institutions empanelled to run conciliation and arbitration. But there is more than one empanelled ODR Institution, and something has to decide which complaint goes to which one.

The workbook's answer is round-robin allocation: "the allocation system on a market-wide basis will be a round-robin system to govern the allocation of each such dispute among all such empaneled ODR Institution/s." Nobody — not the investor, not the market participant, not the MII — picks the institution for a particular case. The rotation does.

The sequence, from Chapter 7's account of the ODR flow:

1. A complaint reaches the SMART ODR portal, which also gives status updates on it, drawn from the ODR Institutions.
2. The relevant MII reviews the complaint or dispute, aiming at amicable resolution, and this review must be concluded within 21 calendar days.
3. If that review does not resolve it, the dispute is referred to an ODR Institution empanelled by an MII — and it is here that round-robin allocation operates: the reference is spread market-wide, across all empanelled ODR Institutions, in rotation.
4. The ODR Institution that receives the reference then appoints a sole independent and neutral conciliator from its own panel, someone unconnected to either disputing party, and does so within 5 days of receiving the reference.

The workbook notes the rotation applies "for an initial period" — signalling that the round-robin design was set up as the starting allocation mechanism when the system was new, rather than describing it as permanent by definition.

Three ODR Institutions — X, Y and Z — are empanelled to handle market-wide securities disputes.

An investor, Mr Thomas, has a dispute referred out under this rotation. He has no say in whether it goes to X, Y or Z — the round-robin system decides that automatically, based only on the sequence in which disputes are referred market-wide, not on which broker he is complaining about or which exchange he trades on.

Once his complaint lands with (say) ODR Institution Y, Y must appoint a sole, independent conciliator from its own panel within 5 days, and that conciliator then has 21 calendar days (extendable by up to 10, by consent) to try to settle the dispute.

Chapter 7 (Investor Grievances and Arbitration), section 7.3.5, describes the ODR flow and introduces round-robin allocation as the link between the MII's own 21-day review and the ODR Institution's appointment of a conciliator. Expect a question on what "round-robin" means in this context — market-wide rotation among empanelled ODR Institutions — and one testing the sequence: MII review, then round-robin referral, then conciliator appointment within 5 days.

• Round-robin is market-wide, not investor-chosen. Neither the investor nor the market participant selects the ODR Institution for their dispute.
• It governs referral to an ODR Institution, not appointment of the conciliator. The ODR Institution that receives the case under round-robin then separately appoints its own conciliator from its own panel.
• It operates only after the MII's own 21-day review has failed — do not treat round-robin as the very first step; the MII tries to resolve the complaint itself first.
• The workbook flags this as applying "for an initial period" — a signal the mechanism was the system's starting design, not necessarily a permanent feature to assume without qualification.
• Do not confuse this with the later 100% deposit and admissible claim value rules — those govern arbitration, a separate and later stage from the round-robin referral into conciliation.