Mediation & Arbitration News Forum

The discretional power of the arbitrators

The discretional power of the arbitrators

by Марат Авдыев -
Number of replies: 0

The discretional power of the arbitrators it one the basic characteristics of arbitration. Commercial arbitration is a real alternative to court litigation for which the expeditious decision is a crucial task. At the same time the party autonomy and partial responsibility of the parties for the outcome of the arbi-tration are conditional for arbitration. 

Thus the arbitrator is, namely, chosen by the party or parties according to their needs, confidence and trust. It is also the reason why national laws state that only in exceptional situations any restrictions or conditions for the potential arbitrators can be applied, to allow the parties to select a person according to the present case. By this selection the parties express not only a trust that the chosen arbitrator is able to issue an appropriate decision but he or she will mange the arbitral proceedings in a just way and ensure that the right for a fair trial will be guaranteed. On the other hand these high require-ments that are put on the parties are one of the reasons why arbitration is not recommended in the cases where the position of the parties in not in balance and one of the parties is considered to be the weaker party, e.g. consumer cases