Before the ink dried on my email invoice, the invoice was paid in full, no quibbles: bang, paid by return. That’s what invariably happens when the adjudicator asks for their fee. In goes the email invoice and back come the pennies. Invariably. Now then, adjudicators, arbitrators, dispute deciders are in a special category: judicial or judicial-ish. It’s not the same as the cut and thrust of everyday commerce. There the English disease gets in the way. And what’s that? Well, we are not good at paying up. We want pipes and bricks and plumbers and chippies so we happily place orders and take delivery, but then something interferes with our grip on the chequebook. Paying up is plagued by paralysis. We don’t actually like paying. English commerce is a bad payer..

So, how come adjudicators’ and arbitrators’ fee notes get paid smack, bang, wallop? It’s because we get our fee invoice issued while still on honeymoon. Disputing parties are nowadays asked to pay the fees of dispute deciders while the dispute affair is still raging and the award is yet to be decided. The sensible and canny human being sees little merit in delaying payment, little merit in causing the adjudicator to become niggled over late payment.

Read more …