This ancient legal maxim has been alternatively attributed to William Gladstone, Britain’s four-time Prime Minister, (1809-1898) and to William Penn, (1644-1718) an English entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of his namesake - Pennsylvania. But, if one digs deeper, the roots of this fundamental legal tenet are found in far more ancient soil. The ancient text known as Pirkei Avot 5:7 (1st century BCE – 2nd century CE) instructs that “the sword comes into the world, because of justice delayed and justice denied ...” In modern times, speedy resolutions of legal disputes dispenses with ancient notions of resolving disputes with "knives and swords.”
Disputes are an unfortunate and far too common by-product of commercial transactions gone bad. Disputes resolved in the context of lengthy, public court proceedings serve to amplify losses. Increasingly, court dockets are queued-up with parties having to wait years to have a dispute resolved. The costs of litigation can sometimes approach the amounts in dispute and the delay attendant to court proceedings can be fatal to businesses that require speed and agility in planning and executing on their business plans.
The reality is that arbitration has generally become an unwieldy, slow, and expensive process in which parties are often paying three high-priced arbitrators as an alternative to a free judge. Depending upon the legal and factual complexity of the underlying dispute, arbitration proceedings do not mandate the use of solicitors and silk. Indeed, in some instances, the parties themselves are in the best position to advocate the facts, which facts are best known to them, only. Arbitration through the ASEW returns the process to a speedy, cost-effective vehicle to resolve disputes.
Under the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, approximately 150 countries recognize and enforce arbitration awards. Arbitration is conducted in accordance with rules the ASEW optimized to achieve a speedy resolution without unnecessary expense.