Originally from International Arbitration Law and Practice, Third Edition

26.1. Delays during the Proceedings

Speed is the hope of all innocent parties in litigation. As was held in Hansard1 by the House of Lords (per Lord Ackner):

“Adjudication is a highly satisfactory process. It comes under the number of ‘pay now, argue later’ which is a sensible way of dealing expeditiously and relatively inexpensively with disputes which might hold up completion of important contracts.”

Speed is generally recognized as one of the main reasons why arbitration is chosen over court proceedings.

Yet the duration of many arbitral proceedings is frequently much longer than the claimant anticipates.2

Even if one forgets the very long duration of proceedings, like SEEE v. Jugoslavia3 and some real sagas like Dame Krebs,4 MINE5 and the Pyramids,6 a duration of several years is by no means rare. This might lead one to believe that long duration is inherent to arbitration.

But such a belief must be strongly rejected. Arbitral proceedings of long duration are certainly not an inevitable evil. On the contrary, arbitration can be short and, whenever overlong, it is frequently due to several pathologies that may be avoided, or monitored if the arbitral tribunal pays attention to them.