ARBITRATION LAW IN ISRAEL
What’s Wrong with the Israeli Arbitration Law? When talking about a smallish dispute – probably nothing. However, when the stakes are high, the Arbitration Law actually encourages predators to threaten your business, your assets and your means of earning a living because the arbitration law prevents the court from interfering.
The risk of the planned abuse of arbitration is especially high when there is a considerable power gap between the litigating parties – e.g their influence and their financial and legal resources. Others can piggyback on the weaknesses of this process to curry favour. Does this explain the proliferation of the business mogul syndrome? Maybe so.
What makes the Arbitration Law such a lethal factor is its laxity, or naivety. How so? Firstly, the Arbitration Law does not allow a court to review the substantive elements of an arbitration. Imagine how this fact can twist the attitude of a party to an agreement that includes arb itration. Secondly, the criterion for assessing the proper behavior of the arbitrator is subjective, thus allowing any criticism of the arbitrator’s motives to be easily neutralized, and making the suing the arbitrator an exercise in futility. Thirdly, though the court can strike down an arbitration ruling, this is not an adequate or effective remedy, especially when the status quo has been breached and no interim relief or recompense can be had.
Especially worrisome, is the government policy of not alerting the public to the fact that the court will not hear an appeal on the substantive part of arbitration – and to compound this by obfuscating this issue. To then claim that the parties “consented” to arbitration, is reprehensible.
And one more thing. Arbitration is a judicial process that is not documented – and because of this it can’t be assesed; so officially it and the parties involved don’t exist.
Not a lot has been written on this subject by litigants. Whether you can influence or not, I hope that you will find the posts in this blog interesting. And of course I appreciate you visiting my site.
Ricki
בוררות הוגנת – מתי
Related articles
- Op-Ed Contributor: Stuck in Arbitration (nytimes.com)
