Alternative Upload Protocols

Suggested Alternative Protocol

1. Party A would circulate an all parties email without Opus in copy, detailing the proposed changes on the understanding that if there are no objections within the chosen time period, the instruction will be provided to Opus. 
2. Once the time period has elapsed, Party A will provide a joint instructional email to Opus, ensuring the appropriate representatives from each party are in copy, which details the changes to be made and attaches the relevant Excel Index. These instructions and corresponding Excel Index should account for any amendments that were raised by the other parties in point 1. At this stage, Opus will action the changes on the assumption that they are therefore agreed between the parties. 
3. In the event that there was an objection raised with Opus, we would pause any work being processed which relates to the request or if already complete and synced to the parties’ workspaces, hide the documents from the bundle - the parties would be charged for any work undertaken alongside the cost for hiding / undoing any work. We would then require the parties to agree to the changes between themselves, and instruct Opus to continue the task accordingly. 
   1. If the parties did want to proceed with having documents on the platform which have not been fully agreed, we would suggest a slightly different approach to appending the document name with ‘[DOCUMENT INCLUSION NOT AGREED]' as we have previously encountered issues where documents are included in the main hearing bundle which have not been agreed and are subsequently removed. Instead, we would suggest creating a ‘Temporary Dispute’ folder which would house the ad-Hoc documents which have been objected to until the point in which a decision has been reached, either to include them in the hearing bundle or remove them from the platform.

If the parties did want to adopt an alternative upload protocol, we would require a joint instructional email to be provided, detailing the proposed changes to be made.

We understand you are at the early stages of the arbitration and therefore the Default Upload Protocol may not be appropriate at this stage and our Memorial Upload Protocol may be more helpful. This would allow each side to review their documents in a private folder before releasing them to the Tribunal and other party. Please see the below setting out the updated protocol.  

Memorial Upload Protocol

1. Default Upload Protocol (Current Protocol) – If this standard approach is followed, the parties would need to first agree any changes to be made to the bundle, then once agreed send a joint instructional email with both parties in copy to the email and then Opus can upload the documents to the platform and make them immediately available to both parties and the Tribunal at the same time. More infomration on this can be found here. 
2. Memorial Upload Protocol - As we understand the parties may wish to upload their own set of documents to the platform so that initially, only the requesting party can access the documents to review, and then release them to the other side and Tribunal at a later date, we will need to amend the upload protocol to the following accommodate this: 
   1. Private Party Work (Pre-Release)
      1. Private / Party Specific Folders – We will create a party specific folder on the platform for each party, i.e. ‘Claimant Only Documents’ and ‘Respondent Only Documents’, which only the relevant party can access. The documents would then be uploaded to these folders initially. Once the documents need to be made available to the other party and the Tribunal, we will move them into a shared ‘Hearing Bundle’ folder, accessible by all. 
      2. Instructional Email Private Folders – Within each instructional email requesting changes to the private folders, we will need express confirmation that the documents should be uploaded into the relevant folder, i.e. ‘Please upload these documents into the Claimant Only Documents folder’ with the subject line also clearly outlining that the email relates to the party specific folders. The instructional email for the private folders does not need to copy both parties. 
      3. Billing – Any fees incurred in relation to the instructional emails for private folders will be billed as per the shared cost split, as they will ultimately form part of the shared content, and the email requests will appear on the invoices as line items.
   2. Releasing to All Parties + Tribunal (Release) 
      1. Releasing Private Bundles to Other Party / Tribunal – We will need to receive an instructional email, with both parties in copy, confirming that the documents should be moved into the shared 'Hearing Bundle' area, therefore being made available to all users and carrying any notes/annotations with the document upon movement. Please ensure this instruction is provided within our office hours, 8am-8pm UK (weekdays) and that we receive them before 7pm to ensure we can action the request before our offices close at 8pm (larger tasks may require more time). We appreciate the parties will be often working to deadlines with the releases so where possible, please could we have as much notice as possible ahead of the deadline to ensure we can advise on when the documents / instructions need to be provided to us – in doing so please let us know i) the deadline, ii) how many documents need to be released and iii) when we can expect them to be sent to us for upload. 
   3. Shared Hearing Bundle (Post Release)
      1. Changes to the Shared Hearing Bundle – Any instructions relating to the shared ‘Hearing Bundle’ folder will need to follow the standard Joint Upload protocol, ensuring the changes are agreed between the parties prior to instructing Opus and the email needs to include both parties in copy as it would be changing the shared content. 
      2. Replacing documents in the Shared Hearing Bundle – Documents that have already been released to the shared ‘Hearing Bundle’ can only be replaced with new documents and not any of the documents that are in the party specific structures. For example, if the document at A/1 in the shared ‘Hearing Bundle’ now needs to be replaced with an updated version, the parties will need to send the document via Opus 2 Transfer and then send across the relevant joint instructional email. If the document for the replacement exercise has already been uploaded to the party specific structure, it will need to be re-provided and we will need to be instructed to delete the version in the party specific structure after the replacement exercise to prevent duplicates existing on the platform - notes / annotations cannot be transferred from private versions to the duplicate version in the 'Hearing Bundle', instead users would need to re-create these on the 'Hearing Bundle' version before deletion. 

Once you have reviewed the above, we would just need both parties to agree they are happy to proceed on this basis and then we can adopt this protocol moving forward.