Arbitrating Technology Disputes: Current situation and outlook from Madrid

Arbitration is increasingly being used as a method of resolving technology disputes, in particular those involving software development and implementation projects, IT services and outsourcing agreements. Tech disputes lend themselves to creative dispute resolution as they may involve trying to keep the project on track even though key milestones have been missed. In addition, using a dispute resolution method such as arbitration can guarantee confidentiality between the parties is respected, ensure that the arbitrators chosen by the parties have the correct knowledge to understand the technicalities of the dispute, and also give the parties the comfort that any award made by the arbitrator can be enforced in another jurisdiction, if this is relevant.

Technology itself is also being used to make arbitration proceedings more effective and efficient and therefore cheaper and quicker for users. In this article we consider why arbitration is a suitable dispute resolution method for tech disputes; and how it is being used in the process itself.

The content of this article is based on an-person seminar hosted by our Madrid office in October 2023 on this topic.  International Dispute Resolution partners Pablo Berenguer (Madrid) and Jalal (Jil) El Ahdab (Paris), together with Marta Lalaguna, General Secretary of the Madrid International Arbitration Centre and Óscar Suárez, member of the Arbitration and Mediation Centre of the WIPO shared their knowledge and experience with the audience.

Resolving Tech Disputes using arbitration

Arbitration is a suitable dispute resolution method for an increasingly large proportion of tech related disputes including, but not limited to those relating to software development and implementation projects, IT services and outsourcing agreements.

It is important to consider at the pre-contractual stage the dispute resolution method that will be used between the parties. The contracts which lie at the heart of these disputes are often complex,…