On more than one occasion, we heard the late Professor Hans Smit tell the following story. He was sitting as arbitrator in an international arbitration case being administered by one of the prominent arbitral institutions (which need not be identified for purposes of this column). He had written his award but, because there were certain complexities in the case, he thought it would be a good idea to send the award to the parties in draft form and give them the opportunity to let him know if they believed there were any errors. He asked the institution if he could do so and was told he could not. He did it anyway. In today's column, we take a closer look at the idea of distributing draft awards.