Newsletter-21

183 ARBITRATION LAW Under the Expedited Procedure Rules, the ICC Court will nor- mally appoint a sole arbitrator, irrespective of any term to the contrary in the arbitration agreement. The parties may nominate the sole arbi- trator within a time limit to be fixed by the Secretariat. In the absence of such nomination, the sole arbitrator shall be appointed by the Court. Under the Rules, there will be no terms of reference. The tribunal will have discretion to decide the case on documents only, with no hearing, no document production, and no examination of witnesses (both fact witnesses and experts). If the tribunal decides to apply these steps, it has the discretion to limit the number, length and scope of written submissions and written witness evidence. The time limit for rendering the award does not begin with the transmission of the file, but with holding the case management confer- ence. The tribunal must render the award in six months from the case management conference, with extensions granted only in limited and justified circumstances. Conclusion Following suit of some other arbitration institutions, the ICC has also revised its rules in order to adopt the expedited arbitration proce- dure. The purpose is to offer a more cost and time efficient procedure to its users. However, the revision in the Rules has already raised dis- cussions among practitioners. As noted above, Article 30 of the Rules states that the Expedited Procedure Rules shall take precedence over any contrary terms of the arbitration agreement between the parties. Additionally, the dispute will be resolved by a sole arbitrator, irrespec- tive of the arbitration agreement of the parties. This nature of the Ex- pedited Procedure Rules seems to raise more discussions, considering that such provisions could be deemed as being against the consent of parties.