Peter Shaw, construction group partner with lawyer Taylor Joynson Garrett, said clients were leaving out arbitration clauses because they can now get quick and cheap results from courts and adjudicators.
The move comes ahead of law reforms that will speed up litigation. Under new civil procedure rules recommended in the Woolf report, disputes can be fast-tracked to appear before a court in six to nine months, said Shaw.
The reforms will also allow clients to include several parties in a single hearing. This means that if a client is unsure who is to blame for a problem, it can bring the main contractor, subcontractors and consultants before a judge in one hearing, explained Shaw.
He added that arbitration was still a good option for complex problems involving design because adjudication was too quick for complex issues to be heard properly.
