Originally from World Arbitration And Mediation Review (WAMR)

Before we start, I am asked to remind you to fill in the form, the evaluations. That’s very important for us and feel free to make any comment you want to make as long as you say that this is the best workshop I have ever seen. (Laughter) Now Act II, we are here showing you deliberations. Deliberations are perhaps the most crucial moment in any arbitration. It’s where and when you win or lose. This is the time where the millions of dollars and hours which have been invested in polishing written submissions, reviewing the evidence, discussing witnesses, having hearings at length can pay off or not pay off, actually. All these efforts were geared towards convincing a Tribunal, yet, the parties are not there anymore. The only decision that they have made is the appointment of the arbitrator and that decision will reflect upon the deliberations. So this is truly a defining moment in any arbitration and what we will do today is we will lift the curtain for you.

Deliberations are very often secret and many jurisdictions vary on absolute secrecy. Here you will see, I wouldn’t say real deliberations, but something which resembles very closely real deliberations. We all know that bad deliberations produce bad awards and bad awards result in parties being disappointed, sometimes even the winning party, but almost always the losing party. So the impact of deliberations on the award is obvious and whether or not the award is acceptable, especially by the losing party, is the direct product of the deliberations. Here you will see three types of deliberations. We call them, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” We will start with the Ugly. They will focus on three issues: the evidence, which was produced late first, the merits of the case, and the costs. In the interest of time, the first two Tribunals, which you have here, will focus only on the merits issue and the question is what is the impact of this clause – (trouble with equipment), hopefully it will work, maybe not, but at some point it should appear, yeah, there you are. Okay, there it is.