An informal Working Group of international arbitration practitioners has developed a draft evaluation form for parties to provide feedback to arbitrators on the conduct of arbitration proceedings and has published a report summarising the development of the form and its possible applications.

The group was formed through the OGEMID (Oil, Gas, Energy, Mining, Infrastructure and Investments Disputes) discussion forum which identified a need for a feedback mechanism to inform arbitrators of the value of their services, to reinforce positive behaviour and provide objective information to allow arbitrators to improve future performance. There is no intention to use the feedback to create a ranking system.

The form focuses on party satisfaction with the arbitrators' conduct of the proceedings. The questions cover common party processes of fairness and efficiency and ask, for example, whether the conduct met their expectations, whether the tribunal acted professionally, dealt promptly and fairly with difficult issues and effectively managed the arbitration.

The group identified two possible applications of the form. It could be used informally by arbitrators and parties, on a confidential basis without further publication. Alternatively, in view of the difficulties in accessing information about an arbitrator's reputation and experience, the data could be used by institutions or other neutral third parties, who could publish the information on their websites and/or make it available to members (subject to party consent and confidentiality issues). The group acknowledges that this could raise questions of accuracy and liability issues, but proposes that these can be addressed separately if publication of the data becomes a more plausible possibility.

The group has invited members of OGEMID to provide comments on the nature and content of the form.