International Construction Law Review
A COMPARISON OF DISPUTE REVIEW BOARDS AND ADJUDICATION
JAMES P GROTON, ROBERT A RUBIN AND BETTINA QUINTAS1
The construction industry has always had a special need for mechanisms to resolve construction project disputes promptly. The two newest and most promising devices for providing “real time” dispute resolution on construction projects are the Dispute Review Board, developed in the United States, and the adjudication process, developed in England. This paper examines the characteristics of each of these processes, compares them, points out the differences between them, and attempts to evaluate their relative strengths and potential weaknesses.
1. BACKGROUND
Over one hundred years ago the construction industries in both the United States and the United Kingdom, because of the need to keep construction projects moving, and because of the vast potential for disputes and conflict on projects, developed a two-step process for resolving disputes at the project site: whenever a problem arose that the parties could not immediately resolve they would call on the project architect or engineer to make an objective ruling on the issue. If that ruling did not resolve the problem, the parties could then refer the issue to a relatively informal ad hoc
arbitration process whereby an arbitrator promptly held a hearing and issued a binding decision. These two processes were designed to enable the parties to put problems behind them and move forward with the project.2
Although the combination of these traditional job site dispute resolution methods served the construction industry reasonably well for several generations, unfortunately during the past 30 years they have ceased to be as effective as they once were. For a number of reasons that will be discussed in a later section of this paper, architect/engineer (“A/E”) decisions are no longer given the weight that have traditionally been accorded to them; and prompt, informal ad hoc
arbitrations to resolve discrete disputes are now practically unheard of. Instead, arbitrations today tend to be massive post-project proceedings that involve a host of disputes that have
1 James P Groton and Robert A Rubin are, respectively, President and Immediate Past President of the American College of Construction Lawyers. Mr Groton is a Partner in Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, Atlanta, Georgia. Mr Rubin is a Partner in Postner & Rubin, New York, New York. Bettina Quintas is an attorney with the New York City Transit Authority.
2 Construction Dispute Review Board Manual, Matyas, et al.,
McGraw-Hill, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as “DRB Manual”), sections 1.2.1, 1.5.2.
[2001
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