Arbitration and expert evidence

Abstract

Expert evidence is a controversial question in arbitration, where discussions on how expert evidence should be regulated to achieve that arbitrators receive expert opinions as independent as possible is the usual practice. But it is being forgotten that, strictly speaking, the parties are the ones that designate their own experts and also the ones that could lose the most if the Arbitral Tribunal rejects an expert's arguments due to his or her lack of impartiality. For that reason, this article analyses the grounds why expert evidence is mistrusted, the solutions continuously offered to this respect and their efficiency. In conclusion, it is stated that the most relevant solution to give validity to expert evidence is the existence of mechanisms that enable both the parties and the Arbitral Tribunal to call into question the experts' opinions.

On the other hand, the interest aroused by what has been mentioned above involves that other relevant topics receive less attention. Therefore, this article also studies questions related to expert evidence such as confidentiality, the assessment of evidence and the experts' liability, among others.