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DISPUTE-SOLVING OPTIONS

Business Review Weekly - 1 July 2004
Letter to the Editor

The positive comments in Lucinda Schmidt's article cut rate dispute (Law, May 27) on the benefits of using commercial arbitration to resolve disputes on the $1.6-billion Murrin Murrin nickel project in WA, highlight the advantages of using dispute resolution procedures other than litigation.

Since 1975, the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia has been training professionals in procedures such as arbitration, mediation, adjudication and expert determination. The spin-off has been the refinement of a number of options now available to parties in dispute.

At one end of the scale there is commercial arbitration. In arbitration, the parties can tailor the process to suit themselves. They can agree all sorts of things: who the arbitrator will be, the timetable for hearings, and time limits on the parties and the arbitrator. The parties can even agree on whether they can appeal to the courts, where the arbitration is held, and the arbitrator's remuneration.

At the other end of the scale there is adjudication in which the process is almost entirely fixed by the relevant state legislation. In the construction industry, this has been shown to adapt well to a range of disputes. In New South Wales, for example, in the past 12 months this process has dealt with more than 700 claims, the smallest being less than $1000 and the largest more than $33 million. Adjudication is available in Queensland for body corporate disputes, and similar legislation has been recommended in New South Wales and Victoria.

For those willing to resolve disputes on their own terms, the institute also has about 400 trained and accredited mediators around Australia who can help the parties come to an agreement.

Tim Sullivan
National president
Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia
Melbourne

We gratefully acknowledge the permission from Business Review Weekly to reprint this article.