New rules governing ICC Dispute Boards will come into effect on October 1. A half-day global launch, scheduled to take place on September 28, 2015 at ICC Global Headquarters in Paris, will provide an introduction to the nature, purpose and operation of the new rules and offer a chance to discuss the role of dispute boards in preventing disputes and resolving them quickly.
Dispute boards are independent bodies designed to avoid and resolve disagreements between parties as they arise during the performance of an often long-term or mid-term contract.
“The new ICC Dispute Board Rules increase the emphasis on dispute avoidance,” said Peter Wolrich, chairman of the ICC Task Force revising the rules. “In fact one of the most valuable functions of a dispute board is to help the parties to avoid disputes, either by encouraging them to do so on their own or by providing them with informal assistance.”
The replacement of current rules dating from 2004 follows three years of revision undertaken by the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR that started in 2012 and received broad input from the international dispute board community, including from the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) and members of other Dispute Resolution Board Associations.
