ARB-MED RULES
The settlement of disputes by arbitration and mediation is an important feature of the commercial and legal landscape.
Arb-Med is a hybrid dispute resolution process that combines the benefits of arbitration and mediation, including: speed, procedural flexibility, confidentiality, choice of decision maker, ease of access to the tribunal, continuity, finality, and enforceability of the outcome.
The primary objective of Arb-Med is the informed good faith negotiation and settlement of the dispute by the parties, with the initial assistance and efficiency of the Arbitral Tribunal’s information gathering powers, in the context of a formal arbitration process that will immediately resume if the mediation that follows is not successful.
If full settlement is not reached in the mediation, the arbitrator who was acting as mediator will have been informed as to the issues in dispute and the facts of the case which can be carried over into the arbitration with potentially significant time and cost savings for the parties.
The Building Disputes Tribunal (BDT) has developed Arb-Med Rules (Rules) for the resolution of commercial disputes that are robust and certain, yet innovative in their commercial commonsense approach to the challenge of combining arbitration and mediation in a single unified process that ensures the principles of natural justice are observed and a just, final, and binding decision is made.
The Rules provide both a framework and detailed provisions to ensure the efficient and cost effective resolution of commercial disputes. The Rules are intended to give parties the widest choice and the capacity to adopt fully administered arbitration and mediation procedures that are fair, prompt, and cost effective, and that provide a structured and proportionate response to the amounts in dispute and the complexity of the issues involved.
The Rules are set out in a manner designed to facilitate ease of use and may be adopted by agreement in writing at any time before or after a dispute has arisen.
BDT’s Arb-Med Rules allow BDT to offer a unique dispute resolution service that is specifically tailored to meet the needs and requirements of parties to commercial disputes – the Rules are fundamentally and purposively directed to ensuring the resolution of commercial disputes in a manner that is private, efficient, flexible, cost effective, and certain.
