Large infrastructure projects — highways, metro rail, ports, power plants — often use dispute boards. A dispute board is a panel of one or three independent experts appointed at the start of the project to help resolve disagreements as they arise, rather than after completion.
Standing dispute boards visit the site regularly, follow the project's progress and become familiar with the parties and the issues. When a disagreement arises, the board can give an informal opinion or a formal decision quickly, while the facts are fresh and the project is still under way.
Decisions of a dispute board are usually binding on an interim basis: the parties must comply with them unless and until they are revised in arbitration. If neither party gives notice of dissatisfaction within the contractual period, the decision often becomes final.
The main benefit is that disputes are resolved early, keeping the project moving and preventing a build-up of unresolved claims that would otherwise become a large and expensive arbitration at the end.
Contractors and employers should follow the dispute board procedure strictly. Missing a notice deadline under the dispute board clause can make a board decision final and binding, or can prevent a party from taking a dispute to arbitration at all.