Ethics for Commercial Arbitrators: Basic Principles and Emerging Standards

Abstract

Commercial arbitration is growing, both in the realm of small generic transactions such as credit card debt, to large complex billion dollar commercial transactions, as well as every type of commercial transaction in between. With this growth in commercial arbitration there has been a concomitant interest in the rules of ethics for commercial arbitrators. In the first part of this paper,1 we outline the emerging basic rules of ethics that govern commercial arbitrators. In the second part of the paper, we discuss whether these emerging standards provide a positive development for the future of arbitration.