Originally from Inside the Black Box: How Arbitral Tribunals Operate and Reach Their Decisions - ASA Special Series No. 42

ZACHARY DOUGLAS:

The odds are stacked up against us a little bit today. We are running late; this is one of the final sessions; the winter light outside is fading; red wine was served at lunchtime; all sorts of things. As a professor I have a lot of experience of sending an audience to sleep. What you did not see at the back of the room is that there are two rows of my students in the room nodding as I’m saying this so my attempt at irony has fallen flat on its face!

I am going to try to enlighten you on a single question: is it legitimate for a secretary or assistant to the tribunal to draft the tribunal's award in whole or in part. I want to introduce this topic with a story, which is partly fact, partly fiction.

Here comes the true part of the story: Just over a year ago after I moved to Geneva I received a CV applying for the job of assistant to me. I always think when I get these CVs that times must be tough because I have never advertised for such a position nor have I ever hired an assistant. Nonetheless, I opened the attachment out of curiosity and one thing caught my eye immediately. There was a heading with the formulation “Awards that I have drafted”. I had never heard of this person before but I looked down the list of awards that he had drafted and, surprise surprise, one of the awards was in a case in which I appeared as counsel. Immediately one thinks about an obligation to pass on this information to the former client and so on but I will leave that to one side.