Early disclosure is the key to maintaining your impartiality as an arbitrator, warn John Crawford and Helen Conybeare Williams
Conflict of interest in international commercial arbitration is a constant source of concern to all the participants in the process. As arbitration is a fundamentally private means of dispute resolution, operating through private individuals, acting as sole arbitrator or as a panel of arbitrators, selected directly or indirectly by the parties themselves (i.e. not by judges of state courts or other public authorities), the notion of conflict of interest has a somewhat different scope and application from conflict of interest in other contexts. Conflict of interest must be examined in respect of the various relationships among the different players – not merely between the attorney and client, but also among the arbitrators, the lawyers and the parties.
