Bretiality: The Concept Of Privacy And Confidentiality

A glaring question raised from the inspection of institutional rules on arbitration is whether privacy and confidentiality are different or not. To answer this very question, a crucial distinction should be made between both the terms. They have been presumed to be the core principles of any arbitral proceedings; this does not mean these two different concepts are implied to be one and the same thing. In fact they are corollaries to each other, since the reason of privacy is the concern for confidentiality. Privacy will be meaningless without confidentiality. Various scholars have made quite a number of distinctions as to what is exactly the concept of privacy and confidentiality.
In some of the literature available it has been stated that until recently

This statement is further elaborated by Schmitz who states that the parties of the arbitral proceedings have to respect and maintain whatever they have learnt in the arbitration as secret. The press and the public lose the access to the hearings and the awards. The documents used in the arbitral proceeding would not be admissible in court proceedings. But in reality this type of secrecy does not exist in arbitral proceedings since certain information need to be disclosed for the public welfare. As one author has noted, “Privacy is concerned with the right of persons other than the arbitrators, parties and their necessary representatives and witnesses, to attend the arbitration hearing and to know about the arbitration. Confidentiality by contrast, is concerned with information relating to the content of the proceedings, evidence and documents, addresses, transcripts of the hearings or the award.” The general practice for determining the issue of confidentiality is to see through the customs, usage and whether confidentiality has been impliedly included in the arbitration