[25739] in North American Network Operators' Group
No Op. - Arbitration clauses in peering agreements
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lauren F. Nowlin)
Wed Nov 10 12:38:00 1999
Message-Id: <4.2.0.58.19991110094041.00aff100@pop.pgexpress.net>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 09:41:13 -0800
To: nanog@merit.edu
From: "Lauren F. Nowlin" <ren@onyx.net>
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Hi all,
Apologies to Randy for the non-operational content here...
I'm trying to modify our peering agreement to reflect more international
standards and am having issue with arbitration procedures.
From the 20-30 documents I've poured through in the past 24 hours:
- most large US carrier peering agreements opt for senior management
intervention prior to termination of the peering agreement - no arbitration
- most mid-size US carrier peering agreements have very bland, offered in
the state the governing law applies to, language for arbitration;
- a few international carriers have UN arbitration (see wording below)
that might make more sense for a global network;
- very few international carriers have peering agreements in any form and
default to the standard US format.
A few international carriers have the following arbitration clause:
"All disputes, controversies, claims or differences which may arise between
the Parties, out of or in relation to or in connection with this Agreement,
or the breach thereof, and cannot be solved to the mutual satisfaction of
the Parties, shall be finally settled by arbitration in accordance with the
United Nations Commission on International Trade Law ("UNCITRAL")
Arbitration Rules as at present in effect with the following
conditions. The award rendered by arbitrators shall be final and binding
upon both Parties.
a) The number of arbitrators shall be three (3), the first to be
nominated by <peer who is the primary on the peering document>, the second
by UNA, and the third to be nominated by two (2) aforementioned arbitrators.
b) The place of arbitration shall be New York, NY.
c) The language to be used in the arbitration proceedings shall be English."
I am mostly okay with the format but would like to see the second
arbitrator elected by the peer receiving the document and the third
arbitrator selected by the UN Arbitration group.
Replies are needed to put forth a reasonable document prior to wasting tons
of legal time...
Credit to the domain name of the reply authors is not what I'm looking
for... I'm looking for reasonable expectance that an arbitration method
like the outline above would not be out of hand rejected by most legal teams.
If you have arbitration language in your document that has been accepted
(signed by more than 5 peers) widely please do forward it to me.
To prevent outrage, please do not reply to the NANOG list.
Thanks in advance for your attention to this matter,
-Ren
Lauren F. Nowlin, ren@onyx.net / peering@onyx.net
Director, Peering & Interconnects
Onyx Networks, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Pacific Gateway Exchange
Voice: 650-558-3262, Fax: 650-558-3154, Cellphone: 650-281-6963
