International Construction Law Review
Book Reviews
Arbitration Awards—A Practical Approach.
By Ray Turner, Visiting Professor, Leeds Metropolitan University. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1–4051–3063–6. 205 pp. + appendices and index. Hardback. £49.50.
As Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the senior Law Lord, observes in his Foreword to this work: “Ray Turner is the doyen of English lay arbitrators in the construction field.” Ray Turner became the first Visiting Professor of Arbitration at Leeds Metropolitan University. This book is therefore the product of decades of practice and experience and it draws on a deep study of the process of arbitration.
Although it is written for the domestic market and for arbitrations governed by the Arbitration Act 1996, it is relevant to arbitrations that are not governed by the law of England and Wales and where a reasoned award is required. One of the recurring features of arbitration is that so few ever result in a hearing or an award. Many are appointed as arbitrators but not many ever have to write an award. There are particular problems facing someone appointed for the first time. Arbitration awards are rarely published, and, even when they are, they appear in a “sanitised” version: usually only extracts are given. Courses do much to make up for this lack but there can be a palpable difference between the real thing and an award devised for teaching purposes (which tends to include rather more than occurs in practice).
Ray Turner’s book is intended to be a manual or vade mecum
and it succeeds impressively. He emphasises that there is no standard method of writing an award and that there must be flexibility. Every arbitrator will have a personal style. There is also a fundamental difference between writing an award and a judgment. The latter will almost always be a public document and the decisions, both of fact and law, have to be sufficiently justified in case there is an appeal. The former is a private document; it is likely only to be read by the parties who have commissioned it, as it were, and will have to observe it and to carry it out. It needs only to be sufficiently reasoned to explain the decisions reached. Obviously this ought, if possible, to be done in such a way that the parties will have confidence that the decision was properly arrived at, even if the result is not that desired. Nowadays, even with restrictions on the rights of challenge, it may be desirable (and possibly, in certain instances, necessary) that the award should inform the reader that the arbitral tribunal has acted in a judicial manner. Above all, an award has to deal with all the claims referred for decision and the issues that result from them (in so far as needed for the decisions reached). Just as an arbitral tribunal must not give a party what it has not asked for, it must not give more than has been sought.
Ray Turner’s book admirably covers all these fundamentals and much more. His first chapter (and Part A) is for the novice but is also a reminder for the experienced in that it sets out the background to the subject.
[2005
The International Construction Law Review
528