Notice of Arbitration or Request for Arbitration is the first and formal document to initiate arbitration proceedings. Without it, there is no arbitration proceedings. Similarly, the first formal document to initiate litigation proceedings is a ‘complaint’ or ‘suit’. Why is a Notice of Arbitration needed to initiate arbitration proceedings?

To answer this question, we need to examine common mandatory and permissive content required by arbitration rules. For mandatory content, it generally has the following:

Referral of the dispute to arbitration: this referral refers to a written statement by a party initiating the arbitration, the Claimant. This express intention is the basis for an arbitral institution to administer the arbitration. The fact that there is an existing arbitration agreement does not mean a party intends to refer a particular dispute to arbitration unless expressly indicated in the Notice of Arbitration to confirm.

Parties’ identities, nationalities, and addresses: persons whether natural or legal persons included in this section are disputing parties. Their identities will assist the arbitration institution to determine the nature of the parties and require necessary authorization if they are legal persons. In addition, this also assists in determining whether the parties are real persons that continue to have rights and obligations. The parties’ nationalities will determine whether the arbitration is domestic or international. Their addresses are also crucial to serve the Notice of Arbitration or other communication. Failure to properly serve to the right address could be a basis to set aside the award on the ground of due process.

Reference to an arbitration agreement and contract: based on the separability doctrine, the arbitration agreement is treated independently from the main agreement. This is because the former governs the procedural aspect while the latter governs the substantive aspect of the dispute. This is the core foundation of the jurisdiction for the arbitration institution and arbitral tribunal since the statutory requirement is that the arbitration is in writing and the dispute shall arise from the defined legal relationship.

Number of arbitrators and registration fees: number of arbitrators will assist the arbitration institution to determine the estimated costs of arbitration, while the registration fee is the fee for the arbitration institution to review the notice of arbitration and communicate with other parties.

In addition to mandatory content, arbitration rules encourage the party to include permissive content such as a statement or proposal with regard to the conduct of the arbitration proceedings, agreed or desired qualification or nationalities of arbitrators, the inclusion of arbitrator appointment, application for the expedited procedure, application for the emergency arbitrator, or accompany the statement of claim. It is the discretion of the party to include permissive content. The purpose of permissive content is to facilitate the smooth conduct of the arbitration proceedings and to save time by communicating many procedural issues at a time so that the other party will have the opportunity to respond to all of these issues at once. If we look closer, the permissive content does not concern jurisdiction or admissibility, identities, and nationalities including the address of the parties of the case at all.

After examining its mandatory and permissive content, we can conclude that the purpose of the notice of arbitration is to formally initiate arbitration proceedings through express referral of the dispute to arbitration with the description of all necessary basis for jurisdiction or admissibility, identities, and nationalities including the address of the parties of the case. It also allows the party to state or proposal any procedural aspect relating to the conduct of arbitral proceedings.