It is a common view, amongst business people anyway, that arbitration is an expedited and cost-effective way to resolve commercial disputes. In exchange for various procedural protections (rules of evidence, appeals, etc.), a private arbitration allows the parties to avoid the inevitable delays and burdens associated with a public litigation.
Similarly, the parties get a person with relevant expertise to decide their dispute, and so they can expect a fair and informed decision. Those certainly are laudable goals consistent with the motivation behind arbitration generally. And in practice, sometimes it works out that way. All too often, however, the parties are confronted with the unexpected and disconcerting reality that their supposedly streamlined arbitration takes on the form of a typical commercial litigation with all the trimmings of discovery, delay and cost. And to boot, they may have arbitrators who do not understand their issues, yet render significant decisions not subject to appeal or any meaningful review.
