48 - Turning Settlements into Arbitral Awards

Summary

The most efficient and cost-effective way to resolve a dispute is through an agreed settlement, rather than a resource-consuming and costly adjudication through courts or arbitration.Parties increasingly use negotiation and mediation to resolve disputes, which policymakers, lawmakers and dispute organizations encourage.The Singapore Convention on Mediation recently introduced an international regime for the enforcement of international mediation settlement agreements.However, because it is not yet widely adopted and some settlements – such as negotiated settlements and settlements reached during an arbitration - may be outside of its scope, parties that want to ensure an effective international enforcement mechanism for their settlement may seek to have settlement converted into an arbitral award. This chapter considers the issues that may arise when seeking to turn a settlement into an arbitral award, including the timing of the settlement and the existence of a dispute to refer to arbitration, the interchangeability of the role of mediator and arbitrator, the exercise of arbitrators’ discretion to grant parties’ request for a consent award, and the status, form, and content of the consent award.