A New Era for Arbitration in Ireland - The Arbitration Act, 2010

INTRODUCTION

Ireland has a long history and tradition of resolving disputes by arbitration and its predecessor systems under its ancient laws. Ireland in more recent times has legislated for the arbitral process and now that evolution has taken another step forward with the passing of the Arbitration Act, 2010 ("the 2010 Act") which became operative on the 8th June 2010.

Arbitration is a dispute resolution process which is entered into by the parties by agreement and the Irish Courts have traditionally respected the independence of the arbitral process and have intervened only in circumstances where there were fundamental errors of law on the face of awards or errors in the procedure which if left to stand would result in an injustice. The Court's ability to intervene in the arbitral process has been dramatically restricted by the 2010 Act and time will tell what approach the Courts will take in cases of seeming injustice where the 2010 Act provides that they