Arbitrating for Accounting Purposes

The root cause of 1 in 5 international construction arbitrations is accountants.

The employer needs a final and binding decision on the project for audit reasons. The bean counters want something to point to as the reason they need to pay the contractor.

This can be a common approach for states and state-owned entities that do not need to take a commercial approach to their disputes.

If you're a contractor facing this kind of arbitration, you need to find this out very quickly.

This kind of arbitration takes an entirely different approach. Pre-arbitral dispute procedures cannot work; there are no settlement offers to negotiate. There is no road off the path to a final award.

You have to be ready to go to the bitter end.