Lawmakers Make 1st Move Towards Bringing Business Courts To Oklahoma

At the Capitol, the state legislature is making the first move to bring business courts to the state.

Lawmakers say this will help with the backlog in county courts.

Oklahoma will become the 26th state to have business courts.

But this is just the first step - creating a task force to figure out what the court will look like here in the state.

This idea of a business court has been a big push from Governor Stitt - who deemed it one of his four priorities during budget negotiations last week.

He says this will help clear some backlog in county courts having a specific area to settle business disputes and commercial litigations between businesses.

With this being a new idea in the state, the actual legislation would create an 11-person task force to figure out exactly how to implement a business court. Then it would green-light the courts in Tulsa and Oklahoma County in 2026. 

"The need that it would provide would come out of the task force meetings they are very there's a clear direction in this bill for them to come up with that plan but when you have contractual disputes many states have found wisdom in creating these courts," said Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat (R-Oklahoma City).

The bill passed out of the senate with only four no votes, it will now move to the state house for consideration.