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23 March 2012 / Martin Burns
Issue: 7506 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice
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All on board

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Martin Burns tracks the rise & rise of dispute boards

Dispute boards are not a new phenomenon. They have been a feature of international construction contracts for decades and were first used in the US in the 1960s.

In 1968 a “joint consulting board” was set up for the Boundary Dam in Washington State. The idea behind the board was to have people imbedded throughout the lifetime of the project to make quick decisions the moment any sign of a conflict arose. This is the essential purpose of dispute boards today.

Rising popularity

In the 1970s, six major US tunnel projects used dispute boards, including the massive Colorado Eisenhower Tunnel. Their role was to manage relationships between key stakeholders who were involved in delivering the project and to make quick, non-binding, recommendations to the parties when conflicts arose.

Between 1986 and 2002, dispute boards were used on around 350 major civil projects in the US, worth a total of around $80bn—98% of disputes that surfaced on these projects were settled by dispute boards,

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