Arbitration
In case that a technical dispute cannot be solved satisfactorily amongst the parties involved, arbitration in accordance with relevant clauses in the contract can sometimes be the only way out to settle the dispute by an independent party.
In the Netherlands in most of the cases the Netherlands Arbitration Institution (NAI) is involved in arbitration. During the process both parties will have the opportunity to submit two times the statements of claim or defence after which verbal explanation can be gives during hearings. In addition to NAI many other parties are possibly involved in the arbitration process like insurances, experts and lawyers. It is therefore important to agree an appropriate and clear strategy at the start of the preparations for arbitration.
For arbitration the cooperation between technical staff and lawyers is of critical importance. A difficulty is that lawyers are often not technically trained, while engineers have no legal background. Therefore it is critical during the preparation for arbitration that the nature and background of the technical disputes are being clarified in depth to lawyers and that legal issues are being explained to engineers.
JBRconsult has extensive in-house experience to initiate and manage the cooperation and interaction between engineers and lawyers directly involved in arbitration.