Advantages and disadvantages of Dispute Review Boards -By Eng K.Ekanayake
Introduction
It is worthwhile
to mention that the contracts in the construction industry are more complex
than all other type of contracts by its nature. This complex itself has paved
the path for the disagreements between parties concerned to such contracts. As
such it is high time to explore the available options or to create new
alternatives to address this issue. In order to address the aforesaid requirements,
a method called Dispute Review Board has been introduced by certain types of
conditions of contracts. The DAPs
Australia suggests that the DRB was first used in 1975 as a response to the
high incidence of disputes being encountered on Tunneling and Dam projects in
United States. As far as the FIDIC conditions of contracts are concerned this has
been named as Dispute Adjudication Board. All these fall into the category of
Alternate Dispute Resolution Methods. At present various guidelines and
procedures have been introduced to strengthen these systems. Dispute resolution
can be categorized into two main categories and they are Judicial dispute
resolution and Extra Judicial dispute resolution or Alternative Dispute
Resolution.