HB 83-REVISED UNIFORM ARBITRATION ACT  CHAIR BUNDE announced HB 83 to be up for consideration. MS. LISA WEISSLER, staff to Representative Berkowitz, said the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act was adopted in 1968. She explained that arbitration is essentially private resolution of a dispute; it's a voluntary process and provides a relatively speedier, lower cost and more efficient means of resolving disputes. The uniform acts around the entire country need to be revised because there is an increasing use of arbitration and a variety of issues have come up that were not addressed by the original act. The revised act seeks to address some of those issues. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws drafted the act that is the basis for this legislation and HB 83 essentially follows what they have recommended. Grant Callow is the Alaska representative on the Conference and can provide testimony on this issue. Representative Berkowitz is bringing this forward on behalf of the Commission. MR. GRANT CALLOW, Alaskan member, National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, said he practices law in Anchorage. This act was drafted by the Commission and is a revision of the original act that was created in 1955. It is an update of the Uniform Arbitration Act, because of changes in procedure. It also takes into account certain court decisions and other issues that came up over the years and need to be addressed. Those can best be addressed in a revision that will make revisions uniform across the states. He explained that new procedures have been incorporated that allow more flexibility in terms of how arbitrations are conducted - for instance, when multiple arbitrations are going on involving similar issues arriving from similar events like contract interpretations, the revised act, among other things, allows all those to be consolidated. This is important because the number of disputes to be resolved by arbitration seems to be growing yearly by significant amounts. If more disputes can be resolved privately through arbitration instead of in the courts, the reduction in the caseload will have a positive fiscal impact on the state. He highlighted one of the revisions that provides that [the uniform act] is a default act and that most of its provisions may be waived by contract, but there are some provisions that may not be waived or varied. Those include the basic rule that any agreement to submit a dispute to arbitration is valid and that the rules that govern disclosure of facts by a neutral arbitrator are in place. In addition, rules guaranteeing enforcement of an appeal of the act cannot be waived and an arbitration decision in a court cannot be waived. MR. CALLOW said it also sets forth standards for when awards can be vacated and allows the court to order provisional remedies during the course of arbitration before an arbitrator is selected. That is important because it prevents parties from delaying the selection of an arbitrator in order to delay the proceedings and somehow dissipate the effect of an arbitration award. MR. CALLOW explained this bill also addresses the issue of arbitrators' immunity to civil liability. Judges, unless they perpetrate some kind of fraud, are immune from civil liability for their decision-making and that wasn't made clear in the 1955 act. The upshot of that is in some circumstances, arbitrators have been sued for no good reason. In most cases those suits don't go anywhere, but having a provision in the act that says that arbitrators are immune from civil liability will insure a supply of arbitrators. It also prevents a situation where a person who had arbitration would have to have another proceeding in court on the same issue. SENATOR FRENCH asked if this bill was modeled on a uniform act that is being adopted in other states. MR. CALLOW replied yes; this has already been enacted in 12 other states and was just approved by the Commission and the AVA. SENATOR FRENCH asked if all the stakeholders had an opportunity to provide input into the uniform act. MR. CALLOW replied yes, absolutely. CHAIR BUNDE said they were running out of time today and held the bill for further work.