Dispute Boards

What is a dispute board?

Dispute Boards are generally associated with major infrastructure projects. They come in various forms but will generally comprise of three individuals who will be assigned to a project and who will be retained to follow that project through to completion. There is the recurring theme of these neutrals being chosen by the parties.

The Disputes Board may consist of, for example, an engineer and architect and lawyer. They will meet, perhaps monthly or quarterly and ‘walk the project’. They will then convene to resolve disputes between the employer and the contractor and between the main contractor and the range of sub-contractors. They will probably do this by a mix of conciliation, recommendation and ultimately adjudication. Their decisions may be advisory or contractually binding, pending further adjudication by a court or arbitral tribunal. There are various sets of Disputes Board rules, including those of the ICC.

How can a dispute board help?

Dispute Boards work well. There are various examples of Dispute Boards contributing to infrastructure projects being delivered on time and to budget. These include the Hong Kong Airport project and HS1 (formerly CTRL 1 and 2), otherwise known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

There are many similarities between major infrastructure projects and major IT projects.

• Both involve long-term and complex sets of relationships.
• Both will also generally involve large sums of money and have a tendency to run over time and over budget.
• Both may involve to varying degrees, elements of design, build, finance, operations and outsourcing.

To date, there has been little take-up on Dispute Boards in major IT projects, although some major IT projects have commissioned individual neutrals. There is undoubtedly more scope for the application of Dispute Boards in major IT projects.

There is more information about Dispute Boards at the website of the Dispute Board Federation www.dbfederation.org.