The American Arbitration Association (AAA) has updated its Commercial Arbitration Rules and Mediation Procedures, effective September 1, 2022.
Per AAA’s announcement the changes
reflect the input of a wide range of AAA stakeholders, and “standardize important longstanding AAA practices—confidentiality,
consideration of consolidation/joinder motions, and civility—as well as revise
rules to further promote efficiency, reflect advances in technology, and
include where appropriate discussions regarding cybersecurity.”
The AAA
highlights five key changes:
- Consolidation: AAA’s first-ever commercial rule for the consolidation of existing arbitrations or the joinder of additional parties. New Rule R-8 now explicitly allows a party to file a request to consolidate and establishes a procedure for acting on such requests.
- Confidentiality: Captures the long-standing requirements of
the Code of Ethics for Arbitrators by including a
commitment to the confidentiality of arbitration in the Rules, pursuant to
new Rule 45(a). Rule 45(b)
specifically permits arbitrators to issue confidentiality orders.
- Conduct of parties and their
representatives: Specifically incorporates
into the Rules the AAA’s expectations of civility and professionalism of
all participants in arbitrations.
- Providing arbitrators with the
authority to interpret awards: Allows
the arbitrator to explain the award (and correct clerical, typographical,
or computational errors) on a party’s motion, per an update to Rule R-52.
- The importance of cybersecurity, privacy, and data protection: Reflects the weight that the AAA places on cybersecurity and recommends that data protection be discussed in the preliminary hearing.
The revised rules include a number of other important changes. The upper limit dollar threshold for the application of the Expedited Procedures rises from $75,000 to $100,000 and, similarly, the lower limit for application of Large, Complex Commercial Disputes Procedures doubles from $500,000 to $1 million. Rule R-34 establishes procedures for dispositive motions and Expedited Procedure E-5 prohibits them absent good cause shown and arbitrator permission. Other rule amendments expressly authorize and promote use of videoconferencing.
These are all welcome changes to promote AAA's goal of an "orderly, economical, and expeditious" procedure for the determination of disputes. The amended rules
can be found here.
