Abstract

The growth of international commercial arbitration in recent years has contributed to a number of perceived problems within the system, in particular, the increasing ‘judicialisation’ of commercial arbitration and an attendant increase in costs. End-users appear to be dissatisfied with a process that, while it still delivers binding awards which are widely enforceable, increasingly does so at significant cost to the parties, both in terms of time and money. This article considers whether arbitral institutions should incorporate a short ‘window’ of time into their arbitration rules to allow parties to seek to resolve their dispute outside the arbitration. The author discusses the problems with so-called ‘arb-med’ or ‘med-arb’ and argues that, as an alternative, imposing a temporary suspension of proceedings during which settlement may be explored could, in some situations, provide an opportunity for disputes to be resolved quickly and cheaply, without derailing the arbitration process.