ABSTRACT
It is common to find in building contracts in Scotland provisions for the arbitration of disputes which arise thereunder or in connection therewith. Indeed, an arbitration clause appears in the Scottish Standard Form Building Contract which is published by the Scottish Building Contract Committee. Conversely, it is not necessary for a building contract to contain an arbitration clause in order to allow the parties to adopt that mode of dispute resolution in relation to a given dispute if they both wish to do that. The most important practical consequence of the location of the seat of the arbitration in Scotland is that, in terms of section 7 of the 2010 Act, the Scottish Arbitration Rules will apply to the conduct of the arbitration. Traditionally, privacy has been considered one of the great benefits of arbitration, the procedure affording the parties a mechanism for resolving their dispute without exposing it, or other sensitive material, to public gaze.
