Confidentiality of an arbitration award [closed]

Question

Namely, I come from a continental law system, that has not yet fully accepted arbitration as a method of the ADR, so I could not find any valuable information.

Could you help me and point out to legal cases (court or arbitration cases) regarding the disclosure of the arbitration award by third party? Or better some literature which analyses this problem.

In the assignment I was given, the claimant wants to use arbitration award from other arbitration proceeding as evidence. The claimant is not a part of that arbitration. In the same time, the respondent, who is a party in that proceeding, objects to that.

Thank you very much! I am also happy to hear your opinions toward this.

Answer 1

The UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration imposes an obligation of confidentiality on parties to the arbitration. This includes the applicant(s), respondent(s) and arbitrator(s) but does not, of itself, include witnesses or service providers to the proceedings - parties need to protect confidentiality from them by contract.

How the modal rules are adopted (or not) in domestic legislation may vary this and may or may not impose penalties for breaching confidentiality. If they don’t the aggrieved party would need to make a damages.

An arbitrator confronted with such evidence (a previous arbitration decision) must decide if it is admissible. Arbitration’s are not (necessarily) conducted according to rules of evidence so the fact that the evidence may not be admissible in a court is not necessarily relevant. An arbitrator is required to allow each party to present their case - the applicant wants to present it - the respondent needs a very good reason why they can’t. If it is presented, the arbitrator needs to decide how much weight to give it - a previous arbitration sets no precedent and, where it is between different parties as here is unlikely to be directly relevant.