A standard institutional arbitration, from notice to final award, typically runs six months to two years depending on complexity, the number of witnesses, and how cooperative the parties are with the procedural calendar. Fast-track arbitration under Section 29B targets six months from the tribunal's constitution.
The single biggest variable is not tribunal availability — it is whether the parties themselves cooperate with the timetable set at the first procedural hearing. Adjournment requests, late document production and repeated procedural applications are the most common causes of an arbitration running well past its original estimate.
Emergency arbitrator proceedings, by contrast, are designed to produce interim relief within days, not months — a very different timeline for a very different kind of urgency.