King's College London

Research on Dispute Boards 

For the purposes of the surveys, a Dispute Board was defined as any "job site dispute avoidance or resolution mechanism, constituted by individual(s) that should operate independently from the parties to the contract(s) and with the purpose of addressing the disputes of a specific project.”

The report is based on the findings of an international survey sent to a wide variety of stakeholders ranging from individuals, commercial or financial entities acting as employers, contractors, suppliers, or other project participants, institutions involved in the constitution or administration of Dispute Boards, and funders who finance projects that use Dispute Boards.

The survey gathered data on 4,019 dispute boards over a period of six years reported by 213 respondents and provides rigorous evidence-based perspectives on longstanding industry issues.

This report replaces anecdotal insights with empirical data, providing a foundation for more informed policy and practice discussions in dispute resolution and construction law and setting a benchmark for dispute board research. 

Key Findings

The survey sheds light on several critical areas, including:

• Dispute avoidance. 50% of individuals and 32% of entities reported that Dispute Boards adopt dispute avoidance measures very often or always. Individuals reported that the most common result of those measures was the dispute being completely avoided, whereas entities reported that the most common scenario was that the dispute was relatively reduced.
• Effectiveness and Compliance: When dispute boards issued 'recommendations', individuals reported that parties comply with the recommendations “most of the time,” while entities found that compliance occurred “sometimes.” Individuals and entities indicated that compliance with (binding) decisions occurs “most of the time”. Most respondents experienced a low frequency (0%–10%) of subsequent proceedings after dispute board decisions. When such proceedings occurred, outcomes rarely differed substantially from the dispute board's original decision.
• Support for an International Convention: There is notable support for a convention to facilitate the circulation and enforcement of dispute board decisions. 58% of individuals, 63% of entities, 92% of institutions, and 50% of funders agreed.

The report is authored by Professor Renato Nazzini and Raquel Macedo Moreira from the Research Centre of Construction Law and Dispute Resolution, supported by a Steering Committee composed of Aisha Nadar, Charles Blamire-Brown, Cristina Mastrobuono, Evgeny Smirnov, Jean-Marc Coulon and Jeremy Glover, as well as by consultants Nicholas Alexander Brown, Nicholas Gould and Murray Armes.

The report was published on 9 December 2024.