Arbitration
ICC Commission on Arbitration & ADR launches Guide on Effective Management of Arbitration
The worldwide launch of "Effective Management of Arbitration: A Guide for In-House Counsel and Other Party Representatives" took place on 6 June 2014 at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) headquarters in Paris.
The Guide provides a practical toolkit for in-house counsel all around the world, allowing them to make decisions on how to conduct arbitration in a time and cost efficient manner.
Reflecting ICC’s continuing efforts to provide arbitration users with means to ensure that arbitral proceedings are conducted effectively, the Guide offers a checklist for the procedural decisions that need to be made at each principal phase of arbitration. “In order to assist users, this Guide is specifically designed to provide them with tools for making decisions to ensure the cost effectiveness of each arbitration,” said Peter Wolrich, Former Chairman of the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR.
He explained that the ICC Rules were drafted to enable the parties and the arbitrators to create a tailor-made procedure that is adapted to the particular needs of each. Parties must have a good understanding of the procedural options and the pros and cons of the various options so that they can make an effective cost/benefit analysis and choose the optimum procedure for their case. The new guide provides party representatives with tools to assist them in accomplishing this important task.
“This Guide is extremely useful not just for in-house counsel but for everyone; parties, counsel and arbitrators,” said Michael McIlwrath, Global Chief Litigation Counsel, GE Oil and Gas. “There is nothing new under the sun here, as the Guide refers to concepts which have been around for a while, but it is helpful to remind all of the stakeholders about how to adapt arbitration to the needs of each case,” he added.
The new tool is composed of 11 topic sheets covering themes such as multiparty arbitration, rounds of written submissions, document production and need for fact witnesses. While the Guide was conceived with the ICC Rules of Arbitration in mind, most of its contents, as well as the dynamic generated by it, can be used in any arbitration. It can be useful for both large and small cases.
The International Court of Arbitration and the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR have been putting in place appropriate tools to allow in-house counsel, who for a long time were absent from the arbitration scene, to be involved in the relevant procedural decisions. The Guide contributes to filling this gap. “Itis the kind of contribution an institution like ICC is expected to make in the interest of users,” said Andrea Carlevaris, Secretary General of the ICC Court.
