Originally from American Review of International Arbitration - ARIA

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  The cases arbitrated under the auspices of the ICC International Court of Arbitration (the “Court”) herein discussed have been described as the first examples of “fast-track” procedure on the international arbitration scene. To this participant, at least, they could more aptly be described as “warp-speed” arbitration.
The first intimation that I had of the remarkably compressed timetable was on December 20, 1991, when I received a communication from the Secretariat of the Court that the parties had stipulated to extend the deadline for rendering of the award to January 8, 1992. Not having been apprised of the time limits specified in the contract, I was about to contact the Secretariat and suggest that they had mistakenly inserted the wrong year and that the reference to January 8, 1992 perhaps should be January 8, 1993. I then received a phone call from the newly-appointed Chairman, Professor Hans Smit, who confirmed not only that the tribunal was indeed expected to come up with an award by January 8, 1992, but that the tribunal’s draft award would have to be in the hands of the Court in Paris for its next session on January 7, 1992.
This was a formidable task indeed, and was further complicated by the upcoming holiday season. I spent much of Christmas day on the telephone and celebrated New Year’s day on an airplane en route to the arbitration. Despite some initial misgivings about whether it was possible, under the circumstances, to have a full and adequate hearing of the dispute, at the end of the day I was satisfied that the relevant issues had been raised and considered and that the parties had been able to make their positions and arguments fully known to the tribunal.
Looking back, it strikes me that this was possible for the following reasons:
- Both the Court and the Secretariat cooperated fully in expediting the fast-track procedures by resolving disputed matters virtually overnight and by imposing very strict time limits (24 hours in some cases) on the parties. Ironically, this was possible because there was no set procedure in place and the Court was free to improvise.
- At the last moment, the parties themselves finally agreed to cooperate in order to have their dispute determined, most notably by agreeing to extend the deadline for the award from December 31, 1991 to January 8, 1992, by allowing the cases to be consolidated, and by accepting the tribunal as constituted and foregoing their right of challenge.
- The issues before the tribunal, while substantial and significant from both a financial and a policy point of view, lay within a fairly narrow compass.
- The site of the arbitration was transferred from Paris to New York, which was much more accessible to all concerned.
- The Chairman was very experienced and innovative, and was thoroughly familiar with the organization and procedure of the ICC.
- The parties had filed extensive and informative written submissions which enabled the arbitrators to quickly gain command of the relevant facts.
- The arbitration tribunal was composed of participants who were familiar with the issues at hand, and were thus able to zero in on the significant points much more quickly than would otherwise have been the case.