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Arbitration tends towards greater specialisation to resolve certain disputes

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Iñigo Rodríguez-Sastre and Elena Sevila participate in the Third Arbitration Open, which brings together close to 300 professionals in Madrid

Madrid, May 2017.- Arbitration is becoming increasingly important and is moving towards specialisation for the resolution of certain disputes. The choice of the arbitrator is therefore one of the key factors in certain sectors in order to achieve a positive experience.

These are the words of Íñigo Rodríguez-Sastre, partner of Andersen Tax & Legal speaking at the Third Arbitration Open held on 11 May in Madrid. Elena Sevila, Senior associate of the firm and director of the arbitration area also participated in this event, which brought together around 300 people.

Specifically, Iñigo Rodríguez-Sastre and Elena Sevila formed part of the “Construction. Out-of-Bounds” debate table, with Elena Sevila acting as moderator. The other participants were Leandro Meneses, deputy director of Técnicas Reunidas, Dakus Gunn, director of Delta Consulting Washington, and Eduard Saura, director of Accuracy.

During the discussion, Rodríguez-Sastre emphasised the importance of the arbitrator’s speciality and its influence on arbitration times and administration of the evidence, as well as the experience in negotiating the arbitration clause in major construction contracts and the importance of the participation of independent experts.

For their part, the experts from the construction sector referred to the benefits of the influence that specialised arbitrators might have on assessing the facts resulting from external circumstances, such as social conflicts, border closures, earthquakes etc. The sector representatives also stressed the need to assess the availability of documents and the cost of the process, both in terms of money and time, and underlined the need to take into account quality and flexibility in managing the procedure with regard to the speed of the proceedings.

The speakers also referred to other considerations to be taken into account in arbitration in construction, such as the availability of the arbitrator, the influence of the conflict on the business reputation and the legal counsel.

The Arbitration Open, organised by the European Arbitration Association, addressed issues of special interest, such as arbitration in construction, arbitration in investment, in IT and in technology; pharmaceutical and agri-food distribution, trials etc. in a session with significant international representation and which was closed by the Minister of Justice, Rafael Catalá.

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