Summary

For at least four reasons, Texas oil and gas producers, well service companies, gas processors, pipelines, refiners, and power marketers are submitting commercial disputes to arbitration instead of the courts much more frequently today than just a few years ago. First, energy companies increasingly are adopting internal guidelines or protocols that call for channeling future disputes into progressively more rigorous methods of dispute resolution. The standard multi-step practice employs three stages: executive negotiation, mediation, and arbitration. Second, these ...