THE AUTHOR:
Deepika Kinhal, Co-founder and CEO at CORD
The Centre for Online Resolution of Disputes (“CORD”) is an India-headquartered dispute resolution institution that administers arbitration, mediation, and facilitated negotiation through a digital-first platform. Its model combines technology with structured procedures, case management, and neutral appointments, with the aim of making dispute resolution fair, fast, and accessible.
On 4 September 2026, CORD introduced a new version of its Rules of Arbitration (“Rules”), taking a distinctive approach to questions of fees, delay, artificial intelligence (“AI”), and appellate arbitration.
The Rules are designed with values of efficiency and accountability at their core. They match arbitrator remuneration to the demands of the case, attach financial consequences to procedural delay, issue detailed guidance on AI use, and allow parties – if they choose – to subject the award to appellate review.
They also bring arbitrator challenges outside the administering institution, allow arbitrators to encourage settlement, and provide for the issuance of sector-specific rules.
Tier Designation: Aligning Arbitrator Fees with the Demands of a Dispute
Arbitrator fees are conventionally linked to the amount in dispute. Rule 9 of the 2026 Rules adds another crucial variable: the case’s complexity.
Every CORD arbitration is assigned to one of three Tiers. In making the designation, the Registrar considers not only the value of the claim and any counterclaim, but also factors such as the novelty or complexity of the legal issues, the volume of evidence, the number of parties and contracts, technical subject matter, cross-border elements, and requests for urgent relief.
Each Tier carries a different arbitrator fee schedule. While Tier II corresponds to the model fee scale set out in India’s Arbitration and Conciliation Act, Tier I applies lower rates and Tier III applies higher rates. The resulting CORD rates range from 60% to 140% of the model fee scale.
The distinction matters because value and complexity do not always move together. A high-value dispute may often turn on a relatively simple legal issue, while a similarly valued dispute may involve multiple contracts, extensive evidence, and difficult legal questions. The Tier system avoids applying an identical level of arbitrator remuneration to both.
The designation is not solely institution-driven. Parties may jointly choose a higher or lower Tier. A party may unilaterally request a higher Tier, although it must bear the resulting uplift. The Registrar may later re-designate a case if a counterclaim, amendment, or other development substantially alters its value or complexity.
The idea underlying this change is that of proportionality. The cost of the tribunal should respond not only to the sum at stake, but also to the tangible demands of time and intellectual labour posed on it.
Delay Default Costs: Making Procedural Timelines Carry Consequences
The Rules contain another procedural novelty, that of Delay Default Costs.
Missed deadlines do not always attract an immediate consequence. Arbitrators may be reluctant to impose costs, or may take a more lenient approach to extensions and late filings.
Under Rule 15, where a party fails to comply with a time limit, a daily cost becomes payable to CORD for each day that the default subsists. The consequence follows from the missed deadline itself.
The Tribunal, or the Registrar before constitution of the Tribunal, may exempt the defaulting party, but must record its reasons in writing. The structure therefore reverses the usual practical position where consequences for delay depend upon a separate application by the opposing party or the exercise of arbitral discretion.
The costs continue to accrue until the default is cured. They also operate without prejudice to the Tribunal’s ability to impose other consequences, including directing the defaulting party to bear tribunal expenses or reasonable legal fees occasioned by its conduct. If accrued Delay Default Costs remain unpaid, the Registrar may seek suspension of the proceedings or withhold release of the award, while protecting the defaulting party’s ability to defend a claim or counterclaim.
This is the clearest expression of the accountability theme in the Rules. Time limits are not framed merely as procedural aspirations. Non-compliance has a defined consequence, while the Tribunal retains discretion to excuse delay where there are good reasons to do so.
AI-Enabled Proceedings, with Human Responsibility and Human Adjudication
The 2026 Rules regulate the use of AI with considerable depth.
Rule 38 establishes five principles for AI use: transparency, accountability, confidentiality, fairness, and human oversight. In particular, it states that a person or entity using AI remains responsible for AI-generated or AI-assisted content, and that AI should augment – not replace – human judgment.
This rule is supplemented by CORD’s AI Practice Note, which regulates different participants differently and, for arbitrators, divides AI use into three categories.
First, certain assistive uses are permitted without disclosure. These include grammar, formatting, retrieving documents, preparing chronologies, calendar management, calculations, and checking citations and sources.
Second, some uses are permitted but require prior disclosure. These include researching legal issues, analysing evidence for inconsistencies, summarising submissions or evidence, preparing procedural orders, undertaking technical research, and assisting with the assessment or allocation of costs.
Third, the Practice Note identifies functions for which AI cannot be used by an arbitrator at all. These include drafting any portion of an award on the merits, determining witness credibility or the weight of evidence, deciding issues of law or fact, determining damages, deciding jurisdiction or admissibility, and any other use constituting a delegation of the arbitrator’s decision-making function.
Parties and their representatives, on the other hand, are treated permissively. They may use AI for any purpose they deem appropriate without disclosure, but remain responsible for the accuracy of factual assertions, legal arguments, evidence submitted, and for verifying AI-generated material. Witnesses and experts must disclose AI use where it performs substantive work they would ordinarily be expected to perform.
CORD itself may use AI for administrative functions such as scheduling, document management, fee calculations, and statistical analysis. Human oversight must, however, remain over substantive administrative decisions.
The framework, therefore, does not answer the question of AI use with a simple “yes” or “no”. It asks what the technology is being used to do, by whom, and who remains responsible for the result.
An Appeal, but Only if the Parties Choose
At present, a party dissatisfied with an award on the ground that it contains serious factual or legal errors generally has no recourse other than to approach the national courts.
Rule 36 changes this, allowing parties to obtain a substantive review of the award within the arbitration. It allows parties to agree, either in their arbitration agreement or subsequently, that an award should be subject to an appellate process administered through the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration.
An appeal may be brought on three categories of grounds: material and prejudicial errors of law, erroneous and prejudicial findings of fact, and grounds on which the award would be liable to be set aside under the law of the seat.
The Appellate Tribunal may undertake a full review of the factual and legal basis of the original award, and may affirm, vary, or reverse the award in whole or in part.
The mechanism, therefore, differs from the limited supervisory review ordinarily undertaken in applications to set aside awards. Importantly, it does not make a second merits review part of every CORD arbitration, and parties must affirmatively choose it.
Further Institutional and Procedural Features
The four mechanisms above form the most distinctive parts of the 2026 Rules, but sit alongside further procedural innovations:
- Challenges to arbitrators have been taken outside the arbitral institution, being decided by an independent Appointments Council.
- Rule 28 introduces an accelerated Emergency Arbitrator procedure, allowing parties to seek relief before a tribunal’s constitution, also providing for ad interim relief.
- The Rules place settlement within the arbitral process rather than treating it as entirely external to it. Tribunals are to encourage parties to consider settlement and may, with their consent, suspend proceedings for mediation. Settlement communications are protected from the Tribunal, and where cases are settled before completion, the Registrar refunds to the parties any unused fees deposited with CORD.
- The Rules also contemplate sector-specific regimes. Where CORD publishes specific rules for a category of disputes, those rules would exclusively govern that category, and the 2026 Rules fill any gaps. CORD is expected to soon release its first sector-specific rules, targeting India’s non-banking financial sector.
Conclusion
The CORD Rules of Arbitration 2026 are, therefore, built around the twin values of accountability and efficiency.
Arbitrator remuneration is tied directly to the demands of the dispute; missed deadlines attract financial consequences; and parties may use AI, while remaining fully responsible for its use. The Rules uphold arbitral finality, but also allow parties to choose appellate review. The same approach is adopted in creating an independent Appointments Council, creating fixed timetables for emergency relief, and refunding fees where proceedings end early.
These mechanisms’ fulfilment of their intended pathway will be closely monitored in the coming months. But the 2026 Rules set out a clear institutional position: technology, efficiency, and speed are most useful when accompanied by complete accountability for costs, conduct, and decision-making.
