First CIArb branch arbitration scheme gets green light
CIArb News / 01 July 2009
The Yorkshire Arbitration Scheme has been given the green light by the Panels Management Group (PMG) sitting in Bloomsbury Square, London.
Tony Marks, CIArb Director of Legal Services, said: "We now have an excellent template to assist with the promotion of other branch schemes and we hope the Yorkshire Scheme is a great success."
The Yorkshire Arbitration Scheme is designed to provide a cost-effective means of resolving commercial 'business to business' and technical disputes through an arbitration procedure that is simple, expedient and inexpensive. It is administered by the CIArb North East Branch and offers a fixed cost solution for disputes that meet some simple criteria. The features of the scheme include:
- a fixed fee for the arbitrator of £1,500.00 (exc VAT), providing the value of the sum in dispute is less than £50,000.00 (exc VAT)
- the appointment of an arbitrator from a panel of local arbitrators by the Chairman or Vice Chairman of the NE Branch, within 7 days of the application being made
- a standard timetable for the issue of the parties' submissions, which aims for the service of those documents within 6 weeks of the arbitrator's appointment
- provision for a half day hearing, if both parties agree, to take place within 8 weeks of appointment, or alternatively a documents only arbitration
- a cap on the parties' costs, which can be changed by the agreement of the parties
- the issue of a reasoned award within 3 months of the date that the application for the appointment of an arbitrator was made
- in addition and for a limited period, there is no appointment fee charged by the NE Branch
The scheme therefore provides a timetable for the issue of a reasoned award within three months of the application being made for simple low value commercial or technical disputes on a fixed fee basis. The scheme will be administered locally, within the Yorkshire area and it is aimed at that regional market.
In order to administer the scheme, the NE Branch has been granted authority by Bloomsbury Square to establish a panel of suitably qualified arbitrators and to make arbitral appointments, in order to satisfy rule 3 of the Branch Model Rules, which previously only conferred that right on international branches.
The scheme was drafted by Paul Beevers, a Chartered Arbitrator, Deputy District Judge and solicitor with Chadwick Lawrence in Huddersfield and Michael Joyce, a Geotechnical Engineer and Chartered Arbitrator of Michael Joyce Associates of the NE Branch, both of whom have many years of dispute resolution experience and have worked tirelessly on the scheme.
Although the scheme was conceived a few years ago and has been publicised locally, the Board of Trustees announced its resolve to approve the scheme at the Congress in Malaysia in October 2008. The scheme's route to attaining PMG approval has seen an extensive dialogue between the NE Branch and the PMG, which has resulted in some revisions to bring various aspects of the scheme into line with other schemes operated by the CIArb, before the PMG agreed to the launch of the scheme at the end of June 2009.
Full details of the scheme are set out on the Yorkshire Arbitration Scheme website, where the Scheme Rules, Notes for Guidance, the Standard Timetable and the Application Form for the Appointment of an Arbitrator can be found.