The IBA’s Arbitration Committee has announced it has detected a clerical error in Paragraph 3.1.5 of the Orange List of the revised IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration. The Orange List, in the Guideline’s system of red, orange and green lists, is the non-exhaustive list of issues that the (potential) arbitrator ought to disclose to the parties The Guidelines have now been corrected as follows: In Paragraph 3.1.5., the expression “on a related issue”, which was part of that paragraph in the 2004 Guidelines, was mistakenly deleted during the review process. It has been re-established so that paragraph 3.1.5 now reads as follows:
“The arbitrator currently serves, or has served within the past three years, as arbitrator in another arbitration on a related issue involving one of the parties, or an affiliate of one of the parties”.
The omission of “on a related issue” resulted in Paragraph 3.1.5 establishing a more demanding standard than the one set by Paragraph 3.1.3., which reads: “The arbitrator has, within the past three years, been appointed as arbitrator on two or more occasions by one of the parties, or an affiliate of one of the parties”. This caused paragraph 3.1.3 to serve no purpose.
The updated version of the revised Guidelines is available on the IBA website.