How to make a complaint
How to complain about the Misconduct of a member of the Institute
A summary of the Institute's procedures with regard to complaints is set out below. This will enable you to decide whether or not the Chartered Institute can offer you further assistance.
The award of an arbitrator is final and binding upon the parties unless and until it is set aside or otherwise interfered with by a court of law of competent jurisdiction. The powers of the court to interfere with arbitral awards are set out in the Arbitration Act 1996. If you wish to consider such a remedy, then you would be well advised to seek legal advice as soon as possible since there is a 28 day time bar, from the date of the award, for making such applications to the court.
The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators has no power to review, revise or otherwise interfere with the award of an arbitrator. There is no right of appeal to the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. However, it does have jurisdiction to entertain a complaint of misconduct made against any member of the Institute, whether acting as an arbitrator or otherwise.
Misconduct is defined in paragraph 15.2 of the Institute's Bye-laws:
15.2
Misconduct shall mean one or more of the following:
- conduct which is injurious to the good name of the Institute, renders a person unfit to be a member of the Institute or is likely to bring the Institute into disrepute;
- a significant breach of professional or ethical conduct which shall include the Code of Professional and Ethical Conduct or other similar document published from time to time by the Institute;
- falling significantly below the standards expected of a competent Practitioner or a competent professional person acting in the field of private dispute resolution;
- a failure without reasonable excuse to comply with a direction and/or a recommendation of a Peer Review Panel constituted under Bye-law 15.1;
- a significant breach of any of the Articles of the Charter or of these Bye-laws (or any Regulation or rule published thereunder from time to time).
In the vast majority of cases a competent arbitrator who gives an award adverse to one party or the other will not be guilty of misconduct. Even if the award is wrong on the facts or on the law this is not necessarily evidence of misconduct. An allegation of misconduct can only be upheld where the arbitrator has fallen significantly below the standard expected of a competent arbitrator or there exists one of the other grounds above.
But even if a complaint of misconduct is upheld by a disciplinary tribunal set up for that purpose, the Institute has no power or jurisdiction to review, revise or otherwise interfere with the arbitrator's award. This is solely a matter for the courts.
In the event that you wish to pursue a complaint through the Institute's disciplinary process, then you should in the first instance write to the Institute's Legal Department who will send you the full details of the complaints procedure.
Once you have considered the procedure and you feel that you wish to continue with your complaint then you would need to submit the full details of your complaint together with any relevant information and documentation, upon which you wish to rely. Your covering letter should set out in some detail the allegations you are making, the relevance of any accompanying documents and the reasons why you believe the member's behaviour or actions constitute misconduct.
Once this letter is received, a copy together with all attachments will be sent to the member against whom the complaint has been made. The member will be asked to reply.
A copy of the member's reply will be sent to you for final reply/comment. A copy of your reply will be sent to the member concerned for information only. Once all the documentation has been received then the complaint, all supporting documentation and correspondence will then be sent to the Professional Conduct Committee for investigation.
IDRS has its own complaints procedure.
Last Updated: 26 March 2009