The Uniform Act states the fundamental principle that the parties to an arbitration must be treated on an equal footing and must be allowed every opportunity to state their claims.
Article 10 of the Uniform Act expressly recognizes the right for the parties to submit to institutional arbitration, and states that if they do so they will be bound by the rules of the chosen institution unless they have expressly agreed that certain of those rules will not be applicable.
A number of basic rules of due process are laid down in the Uniform Act. These are classic rules which are designed to ensure that the parties receive fair and equal treatment as follows;
- The parties have the burden of proving their respective claims, although the tribunal may direct them to provide the necessary explanations and evidence.
- The tribunal may not rely in its award on any grounds or documents with regard to which the parties have not had a proper opportunity to present their case during the proceedings. This applies both to grounds and documents that may have been relied upon by one of the parties, or legal grounds which the tribunal might have raised at its own initiative.
- Any alleged irregularity in the proceedings must be raised as soon as a party becomes aware of it, failing which that party is deemed to have waived the right to raise it.
In addition to these fundamental rules of procedure, the tribunal must apply any institutional rules or the rules of any national procedural law that may have been chosen by the parties. In the absence of such choices, the arbitral tribunal may itself determine appropriate rules.
The tribunal must rule upon the merits of the case in accordance with the substantive law chosen by the parties. If there has been no such choice, the tribunal itself chooses the law that it considers the most appropriate, taking into account, if necessary, the usages of international commerce. The tribunal may also rule in equity, but only if the parties have allowed it to do so.
The arbitral tribunal has jurisdiction to rule on the merits of the matter, its own jurisdiction and the validity or existence of the arbitration agreement.
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