Dispute Board (DB)

As an out-of-court dispute resolution process, Dispute Boards are similar conceptually to “Partnering”. We might say that Dispute Boards are a form of updated Partnering.

A Dispute Board is established generally at the beginning of the contractual relationship between however many contracting parties may concur in a project. The goal is to have the members of the DB “on call” to help parties resolve disputes as they arise.

DB’s are initially not meant to issue binding decisions, but recommendations after a hearing of the parties. However, since the goal of opting for a DB is to keep the project going on schedule, recommendations are binding should a party disagree within a predetermined time frame after the recommendation is issues by the DB. If a party disagrees with a recommendation, it will have to abide by it until a binding method is invoked and the binding process is completed.