According to Christchurch commercial litigator Tony Hughes-Johnson QC’s website, “Arbitration is a formal dispute resolution process whereby two or more parties agree to submit all or certain disputes between them to an independent person called an arbitrator, for a binding decision. … The objective of arbitration is to provide a flexible and efficient means of resolving disputes quickly, cost effectively, privately and confidentially without necessarily adhering to the formalised, technical procedures of litigation.”