People's Court — Rules of Procedure & Evidence

Version 0.16 · Operating rules

How these Rules are organized

• Article 1 — Scope, application, version-binding, definitions
• Article 2 — The Tribunal (single arbiter or AI panel + human reviewer)
• Article 3 — Commencement & jurisdiction (the pre-merits threshold)
• Article 4 — Written submissions (the phased proceeding: complaint → answer → simultaneous evidence → rebuttal)
• Article 5 — Evidence (admissible classes, provenance, lifecycle, burden)
• Article 6 — Decision & the Award
• Article 7 — Escalation to a human
• Article 8 — Execution & finality
• Article 9 — Integrity, conduct & sanctions
• Article 10 — Fees & administration
• Article 11 — General provisions
• Appendices — default schedule, reliability tiers, escalation triggers, Rule→engine map, award-hash recipe

Rules are numbered Article.Rule (e.g., Rule 5.3) so the engine and the opinions can cite them directly. The current engine implementation of each Rule is mapped in Appendix D; Rules not yet enforced in code are marked (not yet enforced).

ARTICLE 1 — SCOPE, APPLICATION & INTERPRETATION

Rule 1.1 — Application

These Rules govern any dispute the parties have agreed, in a Consent to Arbitrate, to resolve through the Arbitrator AI process. They apply as in force in the version identified in that consent — identified directly by number, or dynamically per Rule 1.3.

Rule 1.2 — Eligible parties and disputes

The process is open to any party — business, individual, or autonomous agent — that gives valid consent (Rule 3.2). Covered disputes are those arising out of or relating to the specific engagement identified in the consent (e.g., a smart-contract escrow, statement of work, or services engagement identified by contract hash). A party's use of the process is not a substitute for independent legal advice. Where a party is an individual consumer, post-dispute consent is the default and the operator should provide consumer-appropriate disclosures.

Rule 1.3 — Version-binding (load-bearing)

A dispute is governed by the version of these Rules in force at the moment the Consent to Arbitrate was executed (or, for an existing relationship, the version the parties expressly adopt). Amendments to these Rules do not apply retroactively to a pending or already-consented dispute. The governing Rule version is recorded on the dispute and on the Award. (not yet enforced — see backlog: "case bound to filing snapshot / versioned ruleset")

Dynamic incorporation (new v0.10). A Consent to Arbitrate may identify the governing version by reference instead of by number: the published identifier arbitral-rules-current incorporates the version of these Rules in force at the moment the dispute is filed — the standard institutional clause form ("under the Rules in effect at the time the arbitration is commenced"). On commencement the engine stamps the concrete version and rules-text hash onto the dispute; the stamp is the resolution of the reference, and that stamped version governs the matter end to end. The amendment power behind a dynamic reference is bounded: amendments take effect only on publication, apply only to matters filed after adoption, and pending matters are immune — this pending-matter immunity is what keeps the dynamic reference from operating as an unbounded unilateral power.

Rule 1.4 — Definitions

• Tribunal — the AI adjudicator(s) assigned under Rule 2.1: the three-agent Panel for declaratory-only and ordinary full-review matters, one neutral AI arbiter for low-value agent-to-agent full review, or the memorandum cascade for an eligible micro-claim.
• Panel — the three independent AI agents assigned by the versioned CasePlan to declaratory-only and ordinary full-review matters, plus any earlier matter whose locked CasePlan or persisted roster already specifies a Panel (Article 2).
• Reviewer — the qualified human who signs off where required (Rule 2.5).
• Claimant / Respondent — the party initiating / responding to the dispute.
• Corpus — the funds under the tribunal's control (typically escrowed) that an award may allocate.
• Considered record — the single canonical set of admitted facts and exhibits the Tribunal is permitted to rely on (Rule 5.5). Anything not in the considered record does not exist for decisional purposes.
• Award — the operative, validated disposition of the dispute (Article 6).
• Award posture — what kind of award it is, independent of who wins (Rule 6.5).

Rule 1.5 — Good faith, waiver, and interpretation

The parties shall participate in good faith. A party that proceeds without objecting to a known departure from these Rules waives that objection. These Rules are interpreted to secure a just, expeditious, and economical resolution; where a situation is not expressly provided for, the Tribunal (or Reviewer) shall act in the spirit of these Rules.

ARTICLE 2 — THE TRIBUNAL

Rule 2.1 — Composition

Composition is determined deterministically from filing-time facts and the versioned CasePlan before the merits:

• Eligible micro-claim — memorandum cascade. A Rule 4.11 claim first uses the oracle or fast-memorandum rung. A structural or lawful-award trigger extends that locked plan to one neutral full-opinion arbiter; it does not convene a Panel.
• Low-value agent-to-agent full review — one neutral AI arbiter. Where both parties and their agent status are established at filing through an agent/protocol intake, and the amount in dispute is below the manifest-published $10,000 exclusive boundary, a matter that is not decided at the memorandum rung receives one full-opinion arbiter. A claimant-opened interactive filing, where the respondent is not yet identified when the fee and composition are fixed, follows the ordinary Panel path; later use of the compressed agent timetable does not re-price or change that bench.
• Declaratory-only and ordinary full review — three-agent Panel. A declaratory-only matter, and every other full-review matter not within the preceding agent exception, is assigned to the three-agent Panel. Each agent independently reviews the same considered record and issues a final opinion; there is no deliberation round. A Panel Award issues only under Rule 6.3.
• Pending-case lock. A matter whose CasePlan or complete persisted roster already locked a composition resumes that composition. A rules deployment never changes the bench of a pending case.

The amount threshold is both an agent-lane composition boundary and an oversight trigger: an agent-to-agent case at or above the threshold uses the Panel and requires human review under Article 7. Complexity, novelty, low confidence, or a safety event may add human review but never silently rewrite an already locked AI bench.

Rule 2.2 — Declared interpretive methodologies

For Panel matters, each agent operates under one declared, fixed interpretive stance applied to the governing text:

• Textualist — plain meaning of the words as written; reluctant to look past the four corners of the agreement.
• Purposivist — the parties' intent and the purpose of the bargain; what the deal was for.
• Pragmatist — workable outcomes, custom, and reasonable-party expectation in the relevant ecosystem.

The Panel composition is fixed; parties do not select or tune the agents that hear their dispute (anti-forum-shopping). The single arbiter is likewise fixed and neutral; the parties do not select its model or methodology.

Rule 2.3 — Independence of the agents

In a Panel matter, each agent reaches its own conclusion and issues its own independent final opinion. No agent sees another agent's opinion before submitting its own; there is no synthetic deliberation, negotiation, vote-trading, or convergence pass. The panel result is computed deterministically from those independent opinions (Rule 6.3). A single-arbiter matter likewise has no second AI merits reviewer; one AI judge owns the decision.

Rule 2.4 — Competence to rule on jurisdiction (kompetenz-kompetenz)

Subject to a valid bilateral Consent to Arbitrate and any controlling court determination, the Tribunal may rule on its own jurisdiction, including objections concerning the existence, formation, validity, interpretation, enforceability, or scope of the agreement to arbitrate; whether a claim or party falls within that scope; and whether the dispute is arbitrable. This authority is procedural, not self-creating: the deterministic Rule 3.2 gate must first verify a facially valid bilateral consent artifact, and the Tribunal declines before reaching the merits when that artifact is absent, defective, or tampered. A final court determination that the parties never formed an arbitration agreement controls.

Rule 2.5 — Human reviewer and sign-off

In V1, no Award is final until a qualified human Reviewer reviews and signs off. The Reviewer's role is supervisory (process integrity, escalation, safety) and does not substitute the Reviewer's merits judgment for the Tribunal's except on escalation (Article 7). The scope of automatic, no-sign-off resolution expands only from the evidence the eval harness produces, never by default. Sign-off is a single act that also serves the decision: on signing, the Reviewer adopts (or edits) the reasoned Award (Rule 6.9) and releases it to the parties in the same step — sign-off and party-release are not separate gates (Rule 6.10). The sign-off records the Reviewer's identity, and the served Award identifies the reviewing arbitrator by name — e.g., Signed by Arbitrator [name] (Rules 2.7, 6.9); an unnamed sign-off is reserved for non-binding testing modes. Serving the decision is distinct from executing it (Rule 8.1).

Qualifications for a binding Award. The signing Reviewer must be an identified natural person in good standing who is either: (a) a lawyer admitted and in good standing in at least one United States jurisdiction; (b) a retired judge; or (c) an experienced arbitrator or other neutral who satisfies the qualification standard expressly stated in the parties' dispute program or Consent to Arbitrate. The Reviewer must be trained on these Rules, the applicable review duties, and the limits of AI-generated analysis; must have sufficient subject-matter or arbitral experience for the assigned matter; and must satisfy Rule 2.7. The forum records the qualification basis with the assignment. A person acting only in a testing, product, clerical, or engineering capacity may not sign a binding Award. (qualification-record workflow not yet enforced)

Rule 2.6 — Impartiality, disclosure, and model provenance

The same assigned composition and model configuration are applied to both sides; no adjudicator is tuned to, or briefed privately by, either party. The model provenance, composition decision, and configuration in force for a dispute are recorded and disclosable. Transparency of process (reasoned opinions, published dissents where a Panel sits, disclosed methodology) is itself a safeguard against "black-box" challenge.

Rule 2.7 — Reviewer neutrality, disclosure, and recusal

The human Reviewer (Rule 2.5) owes the parties independence and impartiality, continuing from assignment through the final disposition of the matter. A Reviewer shall not act in any matter in which the Reviewer holds a financial or personal interest in the outcome, or has a relationship with a party, a party's principal or representative, or the subject matter, that could give rise to justifiable doubts as to the Reviewer's impartiality or independence.

• Attestation and disclosure. Before acting on a matter, the Reviewer attests to the absence of disqualifying conflicts and discloses any circumstance that could give rise to justifiable doubts; the attestation and any disclosure are recorded docket events.
• Recusal. A Reviewer who becomes aware of a disqualifying circumstance recuses; the administrator reassigns the matter to a different Reviewer. Recusal and reassignment are logged.
• Party objection. A party may object to a Reviewer on justifiable-doubt grounds; the administrator resolves the objection and reassigns where the doubt is justified. An objection is not a merits event and does not stall execution safeguards.
• Attribution. The identity of the signing Reviewer appears on the served Award (Rule 2.5).

ARTICLE 3 — COMMENCEMENT & JURISDICTION (PRE-MERITS THRESHOLD)

The threshold runs after triage, before the Tribunal reaches the merits. Its three questions are never collapsed into one.

Rule 3.1 — Commencement

A dispute commences when a party files a notice identifying the engagement, the relief sought, and the basis of the claim, and the matter is registered. Pleaded relief is captured at filing and bounds the remedy the Award may grant (Rule 6.8).

Kinds of relief (v0.11). The relief sought may be monetary (an amount in dispute), declaratory (a declaration of the parties' rights, Rule 6.5), or both — the kinds are cumulative, never exclusive. Where monetary relief is sought, the amount in dispute must be stated and positive. Where only declaratory relief is sought, the amount in dispute is zero: no funds are at stake, no corpus is allocated, and the filing fee is the flat declaratory-only fee (Rule 10.1). A declaratory-only matter is assigned per Rule 2.1 and never runs a Rule 4.11 memorandum rung.

Rule 3.2 — Consent verification (deterministic; declines if defective)

Jurisdiction is verified deterministically against the Consent to Arbitrate of both parties. A consent entry is valid only if it agrees to arbitrate, names a covered scope and a Rule version (directly by number, or by the dynamic identifier per Rule 1.3), and its content hash verifies (tamper-evidence). If consent is missing, defective, or tampered, the Tribunal declines and the corpus is left untouched. This is the line that anchors the system as a consent-based arbitration — only the parties who consented are bound, and only their own dispute is decided.

Acceptable consent methods (any one suffices; more is stronger). Consent may be evidenced by (a) a wallet signature over the consent payload (EIP-191 personal_sign; the address, signature, and signed message are recorded and re-verifiable), (b) an explicit click-through acceptance bound to the party's case identity and timestamped, or (c) other attested forms (email/signed document) as configured. A wallet signature is one method, never the sole gate — it is strong for on-chain self-execution but, on its own, thin for off-chain/human recognition (see enforceability-strategy.md). Each party links its own consent to its own side of the case (Rule 4.1).

Rule 3.3 — Scope / arbitrability

The Tribunal proceeds only if the dispute falls within the covered scope named in the consent. A matter outside scope, or implicating the rights of non-consenting third parties, is declined or escalated.

Rule 3.4 — Affirmative defenses (pleaded only; no sua sponte decision)

The Tribunal decides an affirmative defense only if a party pleaded it. A potentially dispositive defense that appears on the facts but was not raised is flagged for review, never decided by the Tribunal on its own initiative. The tribunal does not raise unpleaded affirmative defenses sua sponte.

Rule 3.5 — Framing (advisory only)

An advisory framing step may surface the dispositive question — including where the parties are arguing past the real issue — and may recommend escalation. It never silently decides the dispute.

Rule 3.6 — Separability

Unless the Consent to Arbitrate expressly provides otherwise, the agreement to arbitrate and its incorporation of these Rules are treated as an agreement independent from the remainder of the contract or transaction in which they appear. A claim that the container contract is invalid, voidable, terminated, rescinded, breached, or otherwise unenforceable does not, by itself, invalidate the agreement to arbitrate. The Tribunal may therefore decide a challenge directed to the container contract while separately deciding a challenge directed specifically to the arbitration agreement under Rule 2.4. Separability does not supply missing assent: formation of the Consent to Arbitrate itself remains subject to the deterministic Rule 3.2 gate and applicable judicial review.

ARTICLE 4 — WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS (THE PHASED PROCEEDING)

Rule 4.1 — The phased proceeding (overview)

A dispute proceeds through ordered phases, advancing only when the current phase closes. The proceeding deliberately combines two structures, each chosen for the property it secures:

• Sequential at the pleading stage — the Complaint precedes the Answer, so the Respondent knows the specific charge it must meet (notice / opportunity to be heard).
• Simultaneous at the evidentiary stage — each side's evidence and memorial are submitted blind and revealed together, so neither side reverse-engineers its whole case around the other's, and neither gets an unanswered "last word" (Rule 4.4).

The default standard-track phases are:

Phase 5 (Close) has two steps that run in order: first the record-validation checkpoint — each party is shown a neutral restatement of its own submission and confirms or corrects it (Rule 5.11); then, once both parties have confirmed (or the confirmation window lapses), the considered record is frozen (Rule 5.5) and the merits run (Rule 6.1).

A dispute may instead be filed in quick mode (structured positions + evidence references, for fast/low-stakes matters), which collapses Phases 1–4 into a single exchange and normalizes into the same considered record (Rule 5.5). Submission mode runs the full phased sequence above. The same phases run on every track — the track sets only the clock (Rule 4.6): a standard track wrapping within a month, a fast lane, or an agent lane that compresses the identical phases to hours for agent-vs-agent disputes (Rule 4.9).

In all modes the claimant opens the case and files only its own side; the respondent joins that case (by invitation) and files only its own side. No party files for, or on behalf of, the other. Each party may view and act on only the case(s) it is a party to, and — in a simultaneous phase — sees the other side's filing only on reveal (Rule 4.4). When the proceeding reaches Close, both consents are valid (Rule 3.2), and the record is frozen (Rule 5.5), the matter is ready and the Tribunal runs without an operator step (Rule 6.1).

Rule 4.2 — Phase 1: Complaint (Claimant)

The Complaint commences the dispute (Rule 3.1) and is filed by the Claimant alone. It shall state: the parties and engagement; the facts relied on; the legal/contractual basis; and the specific relief sought (amount and form). The relief pleaded here bounds the remedy any Award may grant (Rule 6.8). Evidence supporting the Complaint is tendered in Phase 3, not here; the Complaint's role is to define the claim, not to prove it. Until the Complaint is filed and notice issues to the Respondent, no later phase opens.

Rule 4.3 — Phase 2: Answer & joinder of issue (Respondent; counterclaims)

The Respondent, having seen the Complaint, files an Answer that admits or denies each material allegation, states its own position, and pleads any affirmative defenses (Rule 3.4) and any counterclaim with its own relief sought. The Answer performs joinder of issue: the set of allegations actually contested — and any pleaded defenses and counterclaims — defines the issues the Tribunal will decide. Matters admitted are not re-litigated; matters not pleaded are not decided sua sponte (Rule 3.4). A counterclaim runs on the same phased schedule, mutatis mutandis. If the Respondent does not answer, Rule 4.9 (default) governs.

Rule 4.4 — Phase 3 & 4: Simultaneous exchange (locked submission, joint reveal)

Phase 3 (Evidence & memorials) and Phase 4 (Rebuttal) are simultaneous. Within a simultaneous phase:

• Each party submits independently. Its submission is sealed — content-hashed (Rule 5.4) and withheld from the opposing party — until the reveal trigger.
• The reveal trigger fires when both parties have submitted, or the phase deadline passes, whichever is first. On reveal, both submissions are disclosed at once. No party sees the other's submission before its own is sealed.
• A party may amend its own submission only before it is sealed; sealing is irrevocable for that phase (cf. Rule 4.7).
• If one party seals and the other does not by the deadline, the sealed submission is revealed and the non-filing party forfeits that phase only (Rule 4.8); the proceeding continues.

Phase 3 carries each side's evidence (Article 5) and its memorial — the narrative tying facts to the pleaded issues. Phase 4 (Rebuttal) is a single round confined to responding to the other side's Phase 3 submission: no new claims, no new relief, no new affirmative defenses. Rebuttal may be omitted for a matter the Tribunal or Reviewer flags as not needing one. Evidence first disclosed at reveal becomes decisional through the normal lifecycle (Rule 5.3); the simultaneous reveal is the exchange event for that phase (Rule 5.5).

Rule 4.5 — Length and form limits

To keep the record decidable and costs bounded (defaults; configurable in the consent):

• Complaint / Answer (pleadings): 1,500 words each — these define the dispute, they do not argue it.
• Phase 3 memorial (each side): 3,000 words.
• Phase 4 rebuttal (each side): 1,500 words.
• Each exhibit must carry a one-line description; a party tendering a long document should cite the pinpoint passage relied on (Rule 6.7 enforces pinpoint-cite integrity).
• Submissions exceeding a limit may be truncated to the limit for decisional purposes; the Tribunal is not obliged to consider text beyond it.

Rule 4.6 — Schedule (default timeline; Appendix A)

The phases are fixed; the clock is set by the track. Each phase deadline is a date certain computed from commencement. The default standard track runs one phase per week and wraps within a month:

• Day 0 — Complaint filed (Phase 1); notice to Respondent.
• Day 7 — Answer due (Phase 2); issues joined.
• Day 14 — Evidence & memorials due (Phase 3); locked submissions revealed together.
• Day 21 — Rebuttal due (Phase 4); locked submissions revealed together.
• Day 28 — exchange closed, record frozen (Phase 5 / Rule 5.5); Award targeted.

A fast lane (low-stakes, low-complexity matters flagged at triage) compresses these intervals and may drop Phase 4. An agent lane (Rule 4.9) compresses the same phases to hours for agent-vs-agent disputes. A party may request a reasonable extension for good cause. Time limits are configurable per dispute in the consent but should not be so short as to deny a fair opportunity to be heard.

Rule 4.7 — Amendments

A party may amend a pleading or submission only before the phase it belongs to closes — and, in a simultaneous phase, only before its own submission is sealed (Rule 4.4). After the phase closes, amendment requires the Tribunal or Reviewer's leave for good cause, with an opportunity for the other side to respond. New claims or new relief may not be introduced after Phase 1, nor new affirmative defenses after Phase 2, except by such leave.

Rule 4.8 — Default / non-participation

Default is handled per phase, never as an automatic loss:

• Service before default. No merits or default adjudication occurs unless service is proven. An affirmative failure of service produces an automatic procedural hold (service_hold), not a merits Award, a win for either party, or an inference about the claim. The operator must prove service or re-serve; actual participation proves notice. A disputed or ambiguous service record is referred for human procedural review. Once service is proven and the Answer deadline expires, the ordinary default rule below applies.
• Full default (no Answer). If the Respondent, after valid notice, does not answer by the Phase 2 deadline, the proceeding continues on the Complaint and the Claimant's evidence alone. Non-participation is not treated as an admission: the Claimant must still carry its burden of proof on the record it submits (Rule 5.8), and a default award is tested by the same validation (Rule 6.6) and escalation (Article 7) gates as a contested one. This is the canonical single-party path — e.g., a crypto bounty non-payment where the payer never appears — and a thin or high-stakes default record is an escalation trigger.
• Partial default. A party that pleads but skips a later simultaneous phase forfeits that phase only (Rule 4.4); the Tribunal decides on what was filed.
• A defaulting party retains the right to be heard until its phase closes; late participation before the phase deadline is accepted.

Rule 4.9 — Agent lane (agent-vs-agent disputes)

Where both parties are autonomous agents (PartyType = agent on each side) and the consent opts into the agent lane, the dispute runs the same five phases and the same locked-submission / joint-reveal mechanics (Rule 4.4) as any other matter. The clock is compressed. Eligible micro-claims use Rule 4.11; established agent/protocol filings below the published threshold use one full-opinion arbiter, and matters at or above it use the Panel. The compressed timetable alone does not create the single-arbiter pricing path for an interactive filing whose respondent was unresolved at commencement. Nothing about the agent lane relaxes the integrity, validation, or escalation gates.

Both kinds of agent are eligible: an agent acting for itself (e.g., a protocol, treasury, or autonomous service that is the real party) and an agent acting on behalf of a human or entity principal. Eligibility turns on both sides being agents and opting in — not on whom the agent represents. The distinction matters only for consent, not access: where an agent acts for a principal, the principal's informed consent to the compressed clock (not merely to arbitration) must be captured, because the opportunity-to-be-heard interest is the principal's, not the agent's. A principal who has not consented to the compressed timing is run on the standard track.

• Same structure, compressed clock. Default agent-lane deadlines, from commencement: Complaint T+0 → Answer T+4h → Evidence & memorials T+12h → Rebuttal T+18h → Close & Award T+24h. A dispute between two cooperating agents is therefore resolvable within a day; the marks above are configurable in the consent.
• Service is machine-to-machine. The Complaint is delivered to the Respondent agent's registered endpoint/wallet (Rule 11.2); "Agent A files and the system serves Agent B" is the notice step, automated. No human relay is required for the proceeding to advance.
• Reveal-on-both-submitted does the real work. Because the joint reveal fires as soon as both agents have sealed (Rule 4.4), two responsive agents finish a phase in minutes, not at the deadline. The hour marks are backstops — they exist only to stop a stalling agent from holding the dispute open, and they trigger per-phase default (Rule 4.8) if missed. Speed is a property of the parties, not a concession by the process.
• Proportional composition. One neutral AI arbiter owns the merits decision; there is no second AI merits reviewer and no automatic three-way vote. At or above the oversight threshold (default $10,000), human sign-off is required; the AI composition stays fixed.
• No bypass of the human gate. The agent lane changes speed, not safeguards. A validation failure (Rule 6.6), integrity issue, attributable bad faith, or amount at or above the oversight threshold still escalates to the human Reviewer (Article 7) and still cannot self-execute an invalid Award. A fast dispute is not an unreviewed one.

Rule 4.10 — Documents-only presumption (live testimony exceptional, Reviewer-directed) (amended v0.5)

The process is documents-only by presumption: the dispute is decided on the written submissions and admitted exhibits (Article 5) alone, and in the ordinary course there is no live or oral hearing, no live witness testimony, and no cross-examination. A party's account of events enters the record as a written, party-asserted statement (weighted under Rule 5.2), not as live testimony. The presumption keeps matters within the validated, record-bound set the Tribunal decides reliably (Rule 5.10); the AI Tribunal never conducts, attends, or receives live testimony — a pure credibility contest the written record cannot resolve remains an escalation trigger (Rule 7.1), never something the Tribunal resolves by hearing a witness.

The exception sits with the human Reviewer, on escalation only. On an escalated matter (Article 7), the Reviewer may direct a live, recorded testimony session — conducted by the Reviewer over video or equivalent means, on notice to both parties, limited to the questions the written record cannot resolve (typically an unresolved credibility contest or a material authenticity challenge, Rule 5.7). The direction, the session record, and the Reviewer's resulting findings are logged; the findings enter the matter through the Reviewer's reasoned decision (Rule 7.3), never by amending the frozen considered record. A party's unexcused failure to appear after direction may be weighed by the Reviewer in resolving the question the session was directed to answer. Most matters — including most escalated matters — conclude without any session; the direction is expected to be rare.

Live testimony is given under oath or affirmation when required by applicable law, requested by a party, or directed by the Reviewer, but only to the extent the Reviewer is authorized to administer it. Otherwise the witness must electronically sign the Rule 5.14 truthfulness declaration before testifying. The record identifies which form was used.

Rule 4.11 — Micro-claims fast track

Where both parties are autonomous agents acting for themselves, both have given informed consent to this tier specifically (distinct from consent to arbitrate and from the compressed clock, Rule 4.9), the claim is filed as one of the enumerated structured claim classes (free-text claims never fast-track), and the amount in dispute does not exceed the micro-claims ceiling (default $25), the matter may run the micro-claims fast track — a proportionality cascade that changes the compute, never the guardrails. A matter pleading declaratory relief (Rule 3.1), in whole or in part, is ineligible for this track (v0.11): the enumerated classes are monetary claim shapes, and a declaration is never issued at a memorandum rung.

1. Oracle-first. A claim class whose dispositive fact is verifiable from the settlement record (e.g. whether the escrow window lapsed) is resolved deterministically from that fact — no model decides. Two limits: the oracle only affirms from facts present in the record (the absence of a fact proves nothing and falls through), and the affirmed fact must itself entitle a party to the corpus. A verified fact that merely refutes the other side's premise decides nothing — the claimant may still be owed relief on the wider record — and falls through to the next rung.
2. Fast single call. Otherwise a single arbiter issues one bounded memorandum verdict: disposition, funds, confidence, and a reasoned basis. This is the deciding rung for an eligible micro-claim — low verdict confidence and evidentiary conflict are recorded on the memorandum and weighed at sign-off (Rule 7.1); they never re-route the matter to a fuller review. Close calls are resolved by burden allocation, not left open.
3. Full single-arbiter extension. A structural or lawful-award trigger on a matter that was eligible for the micro-claim CasePlan extends that plan to the neutral single arbiter for a complete review and full reasoned opinion. The triggers are: quarantined evidence or attributable injection · a split or conditional fast verdict · an award exceeding the claim · accounting-validation failure · rate-limit or ceiling-probing patterns. Merits difficulty is not a trigger (v0.3): an eligible micro-claim is decided at the fast rung whatever its confidence or conflict profile. A matter that was never eligible for the micro CasePlan because of value, tier consent, or claim class follows the ordinary Rule 2.1 composition instead; below-threshold agent-to-agent full review is single-arbiter, while a threshold-and-above matter uses the Panel.

• Safeguard parity (Rule 4.9 discipline). The fast-track disposition passes the same deterministic validation (Rule 6.6) and the same sign-off and execution gates (Rules 2.5, 7.1, 8.1) as every Award; integrity flags and bad-faith markers route to the Reviewer. A fast dispute is never an unreviewed one.
• Form of decision. The fast track issues a memorandum disposition (Rule 6.9): the holding up front, the verifiable facts relied on, and a reasoned basis of several sentences — more than a bare verdict, far less than a full opinion. It resolves the case and carries no precedential force. The decision records its tier (oracle | fast_single) so the record is honest about how the case was decided.
• Principals. Where an agent acts for a human or entity principal, informed consent of the principal to this tier has no capture mechanism yet — principal-representing agents run the standard agent lane (Rule 4.9), never the fast track.
• Protocol-native claims (consent and filing) [amended 2026-07-04]. Where the claim arises from a payment whose operator configuration — accepted on-chain by both agents at payment time — names this tribunal and incorporates these Rules including this tier, that acceptance constitutes the informed tier consent this Rule requires for claims arising from that payment. The arbitration consent and the tier consent derive from the same protocol acceptance and are recorded as distinct attestations; the "distinct consent" requirement of this Rule is satisfied by the configuration's express incorporation of the tier, not by a second signature. A structured protocol act — an on-chain RefundRequest — is itself the filing of the enumerated class escrowed_refund_request: the referral listener assigns the class mechanically from the protocol event, never by characterizing party text. Every claim arriving on this channel is filed under an enumerated class in the first instance — absent a more specific enumerated class in the referral it defaults to escrowed_refund_request, whatever the intake path (listener-relayed or operator-posted); the routing triggers of this Rule, not the intake path, decide whether the memorandum rung hears it. The request states no ground; it is procedure, not proof — the claimant bears the burden on the record, the class is never oracle-resolved, and every escalation trigger of this Rule applies unchanged. Integration requirement: an operator configuration relying on this consent basis must disclose the incorporated Rules, this tier included, to both agents before payment.
• ACP evaluation channel (consent, filing, and record) [added v0.8]. Where the claim arises from an Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP) job whose on-chain configuration names this tribunal's wallet as the designated evaluator, the protocol-native consent basis of the preceding bullet applies with this mapping: the buyer (client) named the evaluator address at job creation, and the provider accepted and performed the job under that designation — those two protocol acts constitute, respectively, each party's consent to arbitrate and to this tier for the evaluation of that job, and are recorded as distinct synthesized attestations scoped to the identified jobId and chain. The provider's on-chain submission of the job for evaluation is itself the filing of the enumerated class acp_evaluation: the referral listener assigns the class mechanically from the protocol event, never by characterizing party text, and the class is never oracle-resolved (whether a deliverable satisfies a requirement is judgment). The record on this channel is the job's own artifacts — the requirement, the deliverable, and the memo history — each authored by a party during the job and already held by both parties when evaluation begins; that protocol exchange satisfies the exchange requirement of Rules 5.3–5.5 for this channel, the considered record freezes at the evaluation referral, and the matter proceeds directly to the merits without the phased windows of Rule 4.4 (the phases already happened inside the job). Every claim arriving on this channel is filed under an enumerated class in the first instance; the routing triggers of this Rule, not the intake path, decide whether the memorandum rung hears it — a claim above the micro-claims ceiling follows Rule 2.1, using one arbiter below the agent threshold and the Panel at or above it. Human oversight remains separately governed by Article 7. Disposition on this rail is binary: the escrowed job budget is completed to the provider or rejected to the client in full; an award that cannot lawfully take one of those two forms is served but never self-executes — it escalates to the Reviewer at execution (Rule 8.1 settlement_action_required discipline). Every safeguard of this Rule applies unchanged: all party-authored job text passes sanitization before any model reads it, the deterministic validator blocks, and human sign-off (Rule 2.5) precedes any execution. Integration requirement: an offering or job configuration relying on this consent basis must disclose the incorporated Rules, this tier included, to both agents before the job funds.
• Positioning. The fast track is an efficiency layer inside the agent lane. Its defined extension is full single-arbiter review; a matter ineligible at filing uses the ordinary Rule 2.1 composition.

Rule 4.12 — Notice of Errata (pre-award correction)

Before an Award issues, a party or declarant that discovers a material error or materially incomplete statement in its own filing must promptly submit a Notice of Errata. The Notice must identify the original filing and affected passage or exhibit; state the correction; explain when and how the error was discovered; identify whether the correction changes any pleaded position or requested relief; and attach any corrected item. The record must preserve the original filing, link it immutably to the Notice, and notify the other party. A clerical correction that adds no new substance may be accepted directly; a substantive correction, new evidence, new claim, new defense, or changed relief requires leave under Rule 4.7 and an adequate opportunity for the other party to respond. A prompt good-faith correction may be considered in assessing weight or sanctions but does not erase an intentional falsehood or resulting prejudice. (not yet enforced)

ARTICLE 5 — EVIDENCE

Rule 5.1 — Forms of evidence (admissible classes)

The Tribunal may receive: (a) party-asserted statements of fact in a submission; (b) uploaded documents (contracts, specs, deliverables, correspondence, invoices) in supported formats; (c) on-chain records (transactions, escrow state, signatures, timestamps); and (d) third-party attestations (e.g., a platform's or oracle's record). Supported upload formats extract automatically; image exhibits are transcribed under Rule 5.12; material that cannot be reliably extracted or transcribed is quarantined pending a readable version (Rule 5.6).

Rule 5.2 — Provenance and reliability tiers (weight, not admissibility)

Each item of evidence is tagged with a provenance (party_asserted_text | uploaded_document | on_chain | third_party_attested) and a reliability tier. Reliability tiers feed the weight the Tribunal gives an item, not its admissibility — on-chain records carry the strongest weight; bare party assertion the weakest. The tier table is Appendix B.

Rule 5.3 — Evidence lifecycle

Every item moves through a defined admissibility lifecycle: submitted → exchanged → admitted → (quarantined) → excluded. Joint disclosure is recorded separately so a quarantined or excluded item can be visible to both parties without becoming decisional.

• Submitted — filed but not yet shared.
• Exchanged — disclosed to the other side; its content hash is frozen (Rule 5.4).
• Admitted — part of the considered record the Tribunal may rely on.
• Quarantined — suspicious (injection, unreadable, or unverifiable); withheld from the Tribunal pending review but surfaced to the Reviewer.
• Excluded — kept out of the considered record.

Only admitted evidence is decisional. Quarantined and excluded items are never silently used, but their original files remain visible to the submitting party and become visible to the opposing party after the filing's joint reveal.

Rule 5.4 — Integrity and tamper-evidence

On exchange, each item is content-hashed (SHA-256) and frozen; a later alteration is detectable by hash mismatch. The hash, provenance, tier, and lifecycle phase travel with the item in the record and may be cited in an opinion.

Rule 5.5 — Exchange and the considered record

Evidence is exchanged with the opposing party before it becomes decisional; a party may not rely on material the other side never saw. In submission mode, exchange occurs at the joint reveal of each simultaneous phase (Rule 4.4): sealed submissions are disclosed together, which is the exchange event for that phase. A quarantined or excluded exhibit retains that admissibility phase at reveal, but its original file and held-for-review status are disclosed to both parties. When the proceeding reaches Close (Phase 5), eligible exchanged exhibits become admitted and the considered record is frozen; the merits phase does not run until then.

Rule 5.6 — Quarantine and exclusion

An item is quarantined or excluded where it: cannot be read/extracted; fails authenticity; or contains material attempting to instruct the Tribunal (Rule 5.9 / Article 9). Quarantine is surfaced for human review and, after joint reveal, to both parties with the original available for inspection; it is not a silent deletion or admission into the considered record.

Rule 5.7 — Authenticity challenges (amended v0.5: raising flow)

A party may challenge the authenticity of an exhibit submitted by the other side. A challenge is a structured act naming the exhibit and stating a ground, raised either within the party's rebuttal (Rule 4.4) or as a standalone challenge while the record is open; the stated ground is party text and passes the same sanitization as any submission (Rule 5.9). A raised challenge never excludes the exhibit by itself: the exhibit remains in the considered record with the challenge noted, and the Tribunal weighs it knowing its authenticity is contested (Rule 5.2) — a bare challenge to every adverse exhibit gains nothing. The challenge and its ground are surfaced to the Reviewer: a challenge sustained on review moves the item to quarantined/excluded (Rule 5.6); an overruled challenge is noted on the record. An unresolved authenticity dispute on a material item is an escalation trigger (Article 7), and a challenge sustained against fabricated or altered evidence is sanctionable misconduct (Rules 9.1, 9.2, 9.5).

Rule 5.8 — Burden and standard of proof

The party asserting a fact bears the burden of proving it. The default standard is the preponderance of the evidence (balance of probabilities). The Tribunal's per-issue burden findings are recorded in the opinions.

Rule 5.9 — Instruction hierarchy (party text is data, not command)

Authority within a dispute is strictly ordered: these Rules and system instructions > party advocacy > evidence content. All party-supplied text and exhibit content is treated as data to be weighed, not instructions to be obeyed. Any attempt embedded in a submission or exhibit to direct, re-role, or override the Tribunal is neutralized (Article 9) and does not alter the Tribunal's mandate.

Rule 5.10 — Record-bound decision; no independent investigation

The Tribunal decides on the considered record only. It does not conduct its own factual investigation, consult outside facts, or rely on authority not in the record. An adverse inference may be drawn only where supported by the record and, where attributable to a party's misconduct, under Rule 9.2.

The sole exception is legal authority researched under Rule 5.13, which enters the considered record before the merits and is thereby authority in the record. The bar on independent factual investigation is absolute: no research pathway may be used to investigate the parties, the transaction, or any contested fact.

Rule 5.11 — Party validation of the considered record (checkpoint)

Before the Tribunal reaches the merits, each party is given a neutral restatement of its own submission — a plain-language summary of that party's claims (or defenses and counterclaims), the relief it seeks, and the exhibits it tendered, as the system has understood them for the record. Each party may confirm the restatement or correct a misstatement of what it submitted. The checkpoint runs at Close (Phase 5), after the simultaneous exchange (Rule 4.4) and before the record is frozen (Rule 5.5) and the merits run (Rule 6.1).

The checkpoint is deliberately bounded:

• Own side only. A party validates the restatement of its own submission. It is not shown the other side's restatement (beyond what the joint reveal already disclosed under Rule 4.4), the Tribunal's analysis, or any draft Award (Rule 6.10).
• Accuracy, not re-argument. Confirmation corrects whether the record faithfully captures what the party said and filed. It is not an opportunity to add new claims, new relief, new defenses, or new evidence (those close under Rules 4.2–4.4 and 4.7), and it does not preview or influence the outcome.
• A correction is logged, not silently applied. A party's correction adjusts the restatement that travels with the record; a correction that would go beyond restatement (i.e., attempts to inject new substance) is treated under Rule 4.7 (amendment by leave only) and surfaced for review.
• Non-blocking by default. If a party does not respond within the confirmation window (Rule 4.6 / Appendix A), the record is frozen on the restatement as generated, noting the non-confirmation. A disputed restatement of a material item that cannot be reconciled is surfaced for the Reviewer.
• Immediate post-close generation. Once all expected final submissions are sealed and jointly revealed, the filing response commits first and an immediate post-response callback generates each party's restatement. A background sweep retries interrupted callbacks, and the Reviewer may manually retry either or both summaries. The confirmation window runs from successful generation, not merely from the close of the record.

The purpose is trust by construction: the party agrees the record reflects what it said before any decision is made on it — converting "do you trust the AI's judgment?" into "do you agree this is your position?" (not yet enforced in code — see Appendix D.)

Rule 5.12 — Transcription of image evidence (extraction, not appraisal)

An image exhibit (screenshot, photograph, scanned document) enters the record through verbatim transcription: a transcription model converts what the image literally contains — text, amounts, dates, identifiers, structure — into text, and that transcription then passes through the same sanitization (Rule 5.9 / Article 9), content-hashing (Rule 5.4), and quarantine (Rule 5.6) pipeline as any other party-supplied text.

The single-decider principle: only the assigned Tribunal adjudicates evidence. The transcription step extracts; it never appraises. No transcription model may characterize an exhibit ("appears doctored," "proves payment"), assign it weight, or otherwise judge it — appraisal by a second model would split the tribunal and put an unreviewable judgment into the record. Raw pixels are never presented to the Tribunal.

• Quality gating, conservative. Transcription output is checked deterministically; low-confidence output escalates to a stronger transcription model, and output that remains unreliable is quarantined (Rule 5.6). Suspect transcription is never presented to the Tribunal as clean.
• Original bytes retained and disclosed. The original file is preserved alongside the transcription: the text is the record the Tribunal reads; the pixels remain available for the Reviewer's verification and for either party's authenticity or misreading challenge after joint reveal (Rule 5.7). Quarantine blocks AI consideration, not party access to a disclosed original.
• Weight unchanged. Transcription does not upgrade reliability (Rule 5.2): a transcribed screenshot remains what its provenance makes it.
• Firewall preserved. Pixels can carry embedded instructions; transcription output therefore receives the full instruction-hierarchy defense (Rule 5.9 / Article 9) before it can reach the Tribunal.

Rule 5.13 — Clerk research of legal authority (retrieval, not recall)

Before a full merits opinion (single arbiter or Panel), the Tribunal's clerk shall research the legal authority the dispute genuinely turns on when external law governs or a party cites authority by name — the actual outcomes, holdings, and controlling tests of cases and statutes. Platform-native or custom-terms-only fact disputes do not trigger research absent a cited authority. The oracle and fast-memorandum rungs never research; if they cannot decide safely, their existing escalation reaches a full single-arbiter opinion where this need gate is evaluated. The clerk retrieves public sources and extracts what each authority held into an authority pack that enters the considered record before the merits. Where an authority divided, the pack states the majority outcome and the dissent.

The Rule 5.12 discipline applies in full:

• Extraction, not appraisal. The clerk reports what sources say; it never characterizes this dispute, weighs its evidence, or opines on the outcome. The assigned Tribunal remains the only adjudicator (single-decider principle).
• Law only, never facts. Research questions are questions of law. Rule 5.10's bar on factual investigation is untouched.
• Firewall preserved. Retrieved web text is untrusted: it passes the full instruction-hierarchy defense (Rule 5.9 / Article 9) before any model reads it, and again before the pack enters the record. Provider-side browsing that splices unreviewed web text directly into an adjudicator's context is prohibited — no panelist browses independently.
• One pack, one record. Every assigned merits adjudicator reads from the same persisted pack; retrieved authority an adjudicator saw but the record does not hold would defeat cite-integrity and is prohibited.
• Auditable and checked. The pack records its questions, sources (URLs), and sanitization results. The integrity layer verifies the operative opinion's statements about researched authorities against the pack; a contradiction (e.g. an outcome stated backwards, or a dissent adopted as the holding) or an unavailable consistency check escalates the Award to the human Reviewer (Article 7) — the check may route to a human, never alter the outcome.
• Failure degrades and adds review; it never decides. If retrieval yields no verified authority, the attempt is recorded and the assigned arbiter still issues its opinion on the record as filed, but human merits review is required before service. Research failure never changes the AI composition and never selects or alters the outcome.

The pack remains internal tribunal work product. The served reasoned Award identifies the authorities it actually relies on, but parties do not receive the retrieval/extraction bundle.

Rule 5.14 — Truthfulness declaration and protocol certification (amended v0.16)

Every filing must carry the exact declaration or certification displayed at submission. The forum records that text with the filer's case identity, filing content hash (Rule 5.4), timestamp, method, and legal form; the text travels with the filing and a filing tendered without the required affirmative act is not accepted.

Identified human filer. A natural person filing for itself or as an authorized representative must review and electronically sign this declaration:

I declare that, after reasonable inquiry, the factual statements I personally make in this filing are true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief. I certify that each exhibit I submit is a genuine and unaltered original or true and complete copy except for any alteration, redaction, excerpt, translation, enhancement, or AI generation or modification I expressly disclose; this certification does not adopt every third-party statement within an exhibit as true. To the extent this declaration is authorized to be made under penalty of perjury by applicable law, I further declare under penalty of perjury under that law that the foregoing factual statements are true and correct. Executed electronically on the timestamp recorded with this filing.

The perjury sentence is expressly qualified. These Rules make the declaration a binding procedural and contractual representation to the forum, Tribunal, and parties. The declaration does not itself determine whether a false statement constitutes a crime or create criminal jurisdiction. The forum does not promise investigation or prosecution by a public authority. Applicable law alone determines any consequence beyond these Rules.

Structured agent or protocol filing. A structured protocol act carries a separate provenance certification: the filing party certifies, after inquiry reasonable for the authenticated protocol record, that factual assertions attributed to it are true and correct to the best of its knowledge, information, and belief and that submitted artifacts are genuine and unaltered except as disclosed. The certification is generated from the authenticated transaction, signature, or message identified in the record. It is not a human sworn declaration, and the system never represents that software has personal knowledge or can take an oath. A human or entity principal remains bound to the forum certification to the extent the act is legally attributable to it, but party ratification is required before agent-transmitted narrative is treated as the principal's personal testimony.

A knowingly or recklessly false declaration or certification is sanctionable under Article 9, and the Tribunal may weigh the filing accordingly. Every filer has a continuing duty to correct a material error through Rule 4.12.

Rule 5.15 — No discovery as of right; focused Tribunal-controlled requests

There is no party-driven discovery as of right. No party may compel interrogatories, requests for production, requests for admission, depositions, inspection, or other civil-discovery devices merely by serving them on another party. A party may ask the Tribunal or Reviewer to direct a focused production, but the request must identify the particular information or item, explain its materiality, and state why it is not reasonably available from the requesting party's own records.

The Tribunal or Reviewer may, on notice to both parties, direct only production that is specific, relevant, proportionate, and nonprivileged and reasonably necessary for a fair decision. The direction must identify what is required, set a reasonable response deadline, preserve objections, and give the other party an opportunity to address any new material. The Tribunal may identify the need, but a human Reviewer must resolve privilege, burden, third-party process, refusal, or sanction questions. A directed production reopens the evidence exchange only to the extent stated; the supplemented record is exchanged, revalidated, and refrozen before decision. No request changes the requesting party's burden of proof, authorizes a fishing expedition, or permits the AI Tribunal to issue third-party compulsory process. (not yet enforced)

ARTICLE 6 — DECISION & THE AWARD

Rule 6.1 — Merits decision by the assigned composition

Single-arbiter composition. In a low-value agent-to-agent full-review matter under Rule 2.1, the neutral AI arbiter reviews the complete considered record and issues one reasoned opinion. No other AI agent votes on, synthesizes, or substantively reviews that decision. An eligible micro-claim may first pass through the oracle and fast-memorandum rungs of Rule 4.11; a trigger at either rung returns the matter to this full single-arbiter review.

Panel composition (independent). In a Panel matter, each agent issues its own final reasoned opinion on the considered record, from its declared stance (Rule 2.2), without seeing or coordinating with the others. Those three opinions pass directly to deterministic aggregation (Rule 6.3).

Rule 6.2 — Contents of an opinion

Each opinion shall contain: (1) caption — parties/IDs, dispute ID, governing law/rules and Rule version, and composition; (2) questions presented; (3) findings of fact, each tied to specific admitted evidence; (4) reasoning applying the governing text to the facts; (5) holding / disposition — who prevails, what the corpus should do, and any amounts, expressed as structured funds instructions; (6) confidence / caveats and any escalation flag. Panel agents additionally identify their declared stance. Internal individual Panel opinions remain Reviewer-facing; the parties receive the single authored reasoned Award under Rule 6.9. In a single-arbiter matter, that arbiter's full opinion is itself the party-facing reasoned Award.

Rule 6.3 — Panel aggregation (majority on the complete disposition; never an average)

This Rule applies only where the three-agent Panel sits. A single-arbiter decision is not aggregated and is never presented as a vote.

The panel result is computed deterministically along two separate axes, so that agreement on who prevails is never reported as agreement on the complete relief:

1. Liability axis. Group the final opinions by their actual outcome. The majority outcome is the one shared by at least two agents.
2. Complete-disposition axis. An Award issues only if at least two agents in the liability-majority group independently submitted the same complete disposition: recipients, amounts, timing, fallback recipients, conditions, deadlines, obligation posture, and any declaratory relief. Declaratory agreement means the same status and predefined scope IDs on every pleaded relief ID; generated wording is not a voting axis. The operative Award is that real structured disposition, sourced to one of the matching opinions. No number, declaration, condition, or remedy is averaged, interpolated, synthesized, or selected merely because it is the median or more moderate proposal. Empty funds ledgers do not establish agreement where structured declaratory votes differ.
3. No remedy majority. If liability has a majority but no complete disposition has two votes, no funds instructions issue and the matter escalates to the Reviewer. The result may report the liability agreement, but it may not call any one-vote remedy the Panel's decision.
4. Quantum reporting. Where two agents do agree on the complete disposition but another same-outcome agent proposes a remedy that diverges by more than a set fraction of the corpus ( default 15%), the Award reports liability and remedy votes distinctly (for example, "3–0 on liability, 2–1 on remedy") and never as flat unanimity.

Roles are derived deterministically: majority (the complete disposition with at least two votes), concurrence (same liability outcome, different remedy), dissent (minority liability outcome). There is no AI "join/dissent vote." Absence of a complete-disposition majority always escalates; a material 2–1 remedy split on a separately flagged matter also escalates (Rules 6.4, 7.1).

Rule 6.4 — Panel concurrence and dissent are published

Where the Panel sits, the operative disposition, any concurrence, and any dissent are recorded and published with the Award, carried in the authored Opinion of the Panel (Rule 6.9). A 2-1 split on the outcome, or a material quantum split on the remedy (Rule 6.3), is an escalation trigger where the matter is flagged high-stakes, ambiguous, or novel (Article 7). This Rule does not manufacture concurrence or dissent in a single-arbiter case.

Rule 6.5 — Award posture (what kind of award)

Every Award declares its posture, independent of who wins:

• escrow_allocation — split a held corpus among the parties (funds must sum exactly to the corpus).
• money_obligation — one party owes the other a sum (liability and amount together; 0..claim).
• liability_only — liability is clear but the amount cannot be grounded on the record → routed to human assessment; no amount is invented.
• declaratory — a declaration of rights with no self-executing transfer.

Obligor/obligee are derived from the posture and disposition.

Declarations (v0.11; structured voting clarified v0.13). At filing, each declaratory request receives a stable relief ID and party-visible canonical proposition. Any severable partial scopes must also be defined then; the Tribunal may not invent a scope while deciding. Each arbiter submits only a structured status (granted, partial, or denied) for every relief ID and, for a partial grant, the exact predefined scope IDs. The Award renderer then uses the canonical pleaded proposition or the selected canonical subpart text. Generated prose is non-operative: it is never averaged, paraphrased into a compromise, or substituted for the pleaded text. Where declaratory relief was pleaded (Rule 3.1), the resulting declarations are operative relief, whatever the monetary posture, are bounded by the pleading (Rule 6.8), and are inert to funds. Every request must receive an express structured answer; a missing, duplicate, unknown, or undefined-scope vote is a validation failure (Rule 6.6).

Rule 6.6 — Deterministic validation (blocking, accounting-only)

Before any Award issues, a deterministic validator checks integrity, not merits: the ledger balances to the corpus where the posture requires it; a conditional/held instruction carries both a condition and a fallback recipient; allocation stays within the corpus unless remedial jurisdiction was opted into (Rule 6.8); and the decision is traceable to the assigned authority. In Panel matters it additionally checks majority support, traceability to a real panel opinion, and consistency between each panelist's label and funds. In single-arbiter matters it checks the arbiter's label, disposition, and accounting without inventing a majority requirement. Any failure blocks execution and escalates to the Reviewer — the system never executes an Award that fails validation. The validator never overrides the Tribunal on substance.

Rule 6.7 — Citation integrity (no fabricated authority or evidence)

Every fact an opinion relies on must resolve to an item in the considered record, and every funds instruction must rest on a finding the opinion actually made. A cite to evidence or authority not in the record (a fabricated source) is flagged; a material fabricated cite underlying an operative money instruction is a blocking error → escalation. No hallucinated authority is permitted in a published opinion.

Rule 6.8 — Remedies and the mandate boundary

The default mandate is corpus-only: an Award allocates the funds under control among the parties and may impose conditions/holdbacks on that corpus, but does not issue free-standing performance orders. Relief beyond the corpus (e.g., damages exceeding escrowed funds) requires an express opt-in in the consent and is otherwise expressed as a money_obligation or routed to liability_only. Relief is bounded by what was pleaded (Rule 3.1). Declarations are within the mandate only where declaratory relief was pleaded: the Tribunal declares in answer to the pleaded request and does not declare sua sponte (Rule 6.5). A declaration is never a performance order and never a monetary instruction.

Rule 6.9 — Form of the Award: one reasoned opinion

The Award is issued as one reasoned opinion matching the assigned composition: an Opinion of the Single Arbiter in a single-arbiter matter, or an Opinion of the Panel where the Panel sits. It opens by stating the holding and relief, then sets out the facts (findings tied to admitted evidence), the governing standard (the applicable rule/doctrine and the burden and standard of proof, Rule 5.8), the analysis applying the law to the facts issue by issue, and a conclusion stating the disposition.

For a Panel matter, the authored opinion is not a bundle of the three internal opinions: it must name and answer the principal opposing position, and any concurrence or dissent is attached from the agents' actual final opinions. For a single-arbiter matter, the arbiter's full opinion travels directly; no separate AI synthesizer or fictional panel vote is added. In either composition, the funds instructions are the operative disposition verbatim: explanatory drafting never creates or alters an amount.

Two forms. A short memorandum (holding up front + issue-by-issue reasoning; no separate summary) may issue for an oracle/fast-memorandum micro-claim and for qualifying low-stakes unanimous Panel matters. A full opinion issues after full single-arbiter review and for Panel matters that are flagged, high-stakes, or carry a dissent or material quantum split. Every Award records its decision tier (oracle | fast_single | single_arbiter | panel).

The Award states its posture, identifies the Rule version, records the validation result and any integrity findings, rests every proposition on the record (no fabricated authority, Rule 6.7), and — in V1 — bears the Reviewer's sign-off before it is final (Rule 2.5).

Rule 6.10 — Disclosure to the parties (what parties see, and when)

The parties' visibility into the proceeding is defined and staged. There are exactly three things a party sees:

1. In — its own restatement for confirmation at the validation checkpoint (Rule 5.11), plus whatever the joint reveal already disclosed of the other side's filing (Rule 4.4).
2. Withheld — internal work. The parties do not see the Tribunal's individual Panel opinions, clerk authority pack, working analysis, triage internals, integrity/injection internals, or any draft Award. These are internal to the Tribunal and the Reviewer. The merits run and any escalation are not exposed in progress; while a matter is under review a party sees only that it is "under review," not the pending result.
3. Out — the reasoned Award on release. When the Award is final (validated, and in V1 signed off — Rule 2.5), it is released to the parties as a reasoned decision: the operative disposition, its posture, the reasoning (by incorporation of the opinions, Rule 6.9), and any published concurrence and dissent (Rule 6.4). The parties receive the reasoned opinion at the end, not the Tribunal's internal work product.

This staging is deliberate. Validating the input (Rule 5.11) earns trust without exposing interim work; disclosing a fully reasoned Award at the end provides transparency and a basis for recognition (Rule 8.4) without inviting mid-stream merits challenges. Release is not a separate gate: the Reviewer's sign-off (Rule 2.5) is what serves the decision, and the reasoned opinion travels with it by default. (A matter may exceptionally serve the holding with the reasoned opinion to follow, but that is the exception, not a co-equal step.) Serving the decision is a distinct, logged event from fund execution (Rule 8.1).

ARTICLE 7 — ESCALATION TO A HUMAN

Rule 7.1 — Triggers

A matter is escalated, in whole or in part, where any of the following is present (consolidated; see Appendix C):

• Threshold failure — consent defective/declined, out of scope, or a flagged unpleaded dispositive defense (Article 3).
• Validation failure — any blocking integrity failure (Rule 6.6) or material fabricated cite (Rule 6.7).
• Split signal — a 2-1 outcome split, or a material quantum split on the remedy (Rule 6.3), on a matter flagged high-stakes, ambiguous, or novel.
• Stakes — disputed amount above the sign-off threshold (default $10,000), or non-escrow matters by default.
• Evidentiary conflict — a pure credibility contest the record cannot resolve, or a sustained/unresolved authenticity challenge (Rule 5.7).
• Novelty / bespoke law — a dispute type or governing law outside the validated set the eval harness covers.
• Integrity / bad faith — attributable prompt-injection, forgery, collusion, or sanctions/identity markers (Article 9).
• Irreversibility — outcomes that cannot be unwound if wrong.
• Posture — liability_only (amount must be humanly assessed).

Rule 7.2 — Effect of escalation

On escalation, no funds move: the corpus is left untouched and the matter is routed to the Reviewer queue. Escalation is a routing decision, not a decision on the merits.

Rule 7.3 — The Reviewer on escalation

The Reviewer may resolve the matter, request further submissions, direct a live testimony session (Rule 4.10), or return it to the composition assigned under Rule 2.1 after a defect is cured (Rule 8.6). A reasoned Reviewer decision is recorded; where the Reviewer writes a decision memo or attaches a document, the parties may read the memo and obtain the attachment.

ARTICLE 8 — EXECUTION & FINALITY

Rule 8.1 — Decision is not execution (served vs. paid)

The status of a dispute distinguishes deciding, serving, and executing. Sign-off serves the decision to the parties (Rules 2.5, 6.10); fund execution is a separately-timed event. Execution occurs on sign-off or, where configured, at the close of a challenge window (served_awaiting_execution → executed; default window 0). Where the consent provides for the Rule 8.8 appeal, the window is nonzero and is the period within which an appeal may be filed; a filed appeal holds execution (Rule 8.8). Serving the decision is never delayed by the window — only execution holds. Without an appeal tier the window is zero and execution follows serving immediately. If an external settlement adapter is unavailable or refuses the instruction after service, the Award remains valid and served while the case enters settlement_action_required; that state is an execution exception, not a merits escalation or withdrawal of the Award. A validated, signed Award progresses through explicit states; a held/conditional amount is never shown as "released." This finality-timing window is not a merits appeal (Rule 8.5).

Rule 8.2 — Self-execution (on-chain escrow) — escrow is optional

Escrow is optional: a case may run with or without funds under the Tribunal's control. Where a corpus is held in escrow, the Award self-executes (escrow_allocation posture): the escrow releases per the funds instructions, and no court confirmation is required for collection of the corpus. Where no escrow is posted, the Award is a money_obligation/confirmable award (Rule 8.4) — the absence of escrow changes the execution path, not the right to adjudicate.

Rule 8.3 — Conditional release and holdback

A holdback or conditional instruction releases only when its stated condition is met; absent that, the funds follow the stated fallback (Rule 6.6). A pending holdback rests in a holdback_pending state, not "released."

Rule 8.4 — Non-escrow / obligation awards

Where there is no corpus under control (a money_obligation), the Award is a confirmable obligation — a reasoned award a party may take to recognition/enforcement — not a self-executing transfer. The execution path for these awards depends on the enforceability strategy (see enforceability-strategy.md).

Rule 8.5 — Finality and correction (amended v0.6)

A signed, executed Award is final on the merits; there is no merits appeal within the process except the optional Rule 8.8 appeal where the consent provides for it and it is invoked within the challenge window. The Tribunal/Reviewer may correct a clerical, computational, or typographical error, and may interpret an ambiguous operative term, without reopening the merits. Any challenge to the Award beyond clerical correction and Rule 8.8 lies outside the process and is governed by the applicable law and the consent.

Rule 8.6 — Reopening

A matter may be reopened only by the Reviewer/administrator (e.g., to cure a validation defect or after escalation): prior opinions and the draft Award are cleared, the submitted evidence and considered record are retained, and the dispute is reset for a fresh run. Reopening is a logged event.

Rule 8.7 — Additional award (pleaded-but-omitted claim)

Where the Award omitted a claim that was pleaded before the Award issued, the Reviewer may decide that claim by an additional award without reopening the merits already decided. Boundaries, deterministically enforced: the claim must trace to the pleaded record (a new claim is a new case, not an addendum); the same pleaded claim is decided at most once; the original Award's instructions are preserved verbatim and the addendum only adds instructions for the omitted claim; the combined ledger passes the same validation as the original Award and is re-hashed (and re-signed where signing is configured); no addendum issues after funds have executed. Where the Award fully allocates a held corpus (escrow_allocation), a monetary addendum would necessarily reallocate decided funds and is therefore excluded - the omitted claim may be decided as no-relief by additional award, and any reallocation goes through Rule 7.3 or Rule 8.6. Deciding the omitted claim as no relief is still deciding it and must be explicit and reasoned. The additional award is a reasoned, party-visible docket event; where it changes which party nets more overall (an omitted set-off can), that change is flagged on the record, never silent.

Rule 8.8 — Optional appeal to a human appellate reviewer (new v0.6)

Where the consent provides for it, either party may appeal a served Award to a human appellate reviewer within the Rule 8.1 challenge window. The appeal is the process's one internal merits pressure valve; it is bounded on every axis:

• Eligibility. Only Awards not decided by a human on the merits are appealable: matters decided at the oracle, fast-memorandum, single-arbiter, or Panel tier under routine supervisory sign-off. A matter the Reviewer resolved under Rule 7.3, or any human-authored decision, is final without appeal — the human level has already been had.
• Window and irreversibility. The appeal must be filed within the challenge window and before funds execute; no appeal lies after execution (Rule 8.7 discipline). A filed appeal holds execution only — the served decision stands served, and serving is never delayed by the window (Rule 8.1).
• Fee, never a bond. The appellant pays a flat, non-refundable filing fee to the forum (Rule 10.1 fee-for-service; amount). The fee is never outcome-linked, never payable to the opposing party, and never a posted bond forfeited on the result — nothing about the appeal may create a stake in the outcome beyond the parties' own claims. The appeal is docketed when the fee is confirmed.
• Record-bound de novo review. The appellate reviewer decides the matter afresh on the frozen considered record (Rule 5.5). No new evidence, claims, or defenses on appeal — new evidence remains a Rule 8.6 reopening question. The appellate reviewer owes the parties the full Rule 2.7 duties and must not be the Reviewer who signed off the appealed Award.
• Disposition. The appellate reviewer affirms the Award (execution proceeds) or issues a substitute reasoned decision through the Rule 7.3 machinery; a substitute decision passes the same deterministic validation (Rule 6.6), is re-hashed and re-signed where configured (Appendix E), and carries human-decided authority in the precedent ledger. Either way the appellate decision is final: one level, no further internal review.

Rule 8.9 — Binding effect, recognition, and limits

Where the parties formed a valid written Consent to Arbitrate for a covered dispute, a signed and served Award issued under these Rules is intended to be final and binding on the parties, subject to the internal correction and appeal provisions they adopted and to applicable law. The parties shall comply with the Award. Where an applicable arbitration statute permits, a party may seek recognition or confirmation and entry of judgment in a court with jurisdiction.

This Rule states the parties' intended contractual effect; it does not make every Award automatically enforceable in every court. These Rules do not themselves establish agreement formation, capacity or authority, statutory coverage, subject-matter or personal jurisdiction, venue, service, confirmation eligibility, or practical collectability. This Rule does not eliminate any nonwaivable ground for judicial review, vacatur, refusal of recognition, or public-policy limitation. An on-chain or other settlement execution is agreed performance of the Award, not a representation that a court confirmed it. An implied-consent or expressly non-binding testing matter never produces a binding Award.

ARTICLE 9 — INTEGRITY, CONDUCT & SANCTIONS

Rule 9.1 — Prohibited conduct

No party or exhibit may: attempt to instruct, re-role, or override the Tribunal (prompt injection); submit forged, altered, or fabricated evidence; collude to manipulate the outcome; or impersonate a party. Legitimate third-person advocacy ("Respondent should be held liable") is not prohibited conduct and is preserved intact.

Rule 9.2 — Sanctions and responses (amended v0.5)

Detected misconduct is met deterministically and proportionately: tribunal-directed instructions are neutralized (Rule 5.9); severe cases are quarantined (Rule 5.6); an adverse inference may be recommended only where the misconduct is attributable to a party; and attributable injection or forgery routes the matter to human sign-off. Attributable fabrication, forgery, or injection may additionally warrant exclusion from the forum (Rule 9.5). Sanctions are surfaced in the integrity report on the Award.

After notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond, a human Reviewer may address a knowing, reckless, or materially misleading violation of Rule 5.14 by disregarding or excluding affected evidence, drawing an adverse inference, permitting a focused response or curative submission, allocating fees or costs to the extent authorized, dismissing an affected claim or defense where proportionate and permitted, or imposing another remedy authorized by the Consent, these Rules, and applicable law. Harmless mistake, disclosed uncertainty, translation error, or a prompt good-faith correction is not treated as intentional falsity. Any sanction must identify the attributable conduct and reasons. (expanded Rule 5.14 sanctions workflow not yet enforced)

Rule 9.3 — Confidentiality and publication

The reasoned Award, the opinions, and any dissent are ordinarily part of the public decisions record. The published caption ordinarily retains the parties' recorded names; publication does not require mutual opt-in and neither party has an automatic veto. Raw exhibits are not published merely because the decision is published. A party may request targeted redaction or sealing, and the forum may order it, for trade secrets, minors, safety, protected personal data, legal obligation, or other good cause. Any redaction or sealing should be no broader than necessary and should itself be noted on the public record where lawful. A pseudonymous party is identified by the name under which it participated unless good cause requires a different treatment.

Rule 9.4 — Data handling and use of submissions

Raw exhibits are handled per the data-handling policy. Raw submitted material is not used to train models; any de-identified learning signal is opt-in and passes through a reviewed abstraction pipeline. A training-consent clause governs before any document lands.

Rule 9.5 — Exclusion from the forum (prospective, human-decided) (new v0.5)

Attributable fabrication, forgery, or prompt injection (Rule 9.1) may result in the responsible party's exclusion from the forum: the excluded identity may not open or join new matters. Exclusion is decided only by a human Reviewer or the administrator on an attributable finding — never automatically by the engine — and is a logged, prospective act.

Exclusion is orthogonal to any pending matter, by design, so that misconduct can never become an exit:

• It never divests the Tribunal of jurisdiction over a matter already commenced (Rule 2.4); consent to arbitrate, once given, is not shed by misconduct.
• It never terminates, decides, or alters a pending matter. The pending matter proceeds to disposition on the clean considered record (Rule 5.6), and any adverse inference is decided by the Tribunal under Rules 5.10 and 9.2 — never by the exclusion.
• If an excluded party declines to participate in remaining phases, the per-phase default rules apply (Rule 4.8); the matter is never cancelled by the exclusion, and the non-excluded party's claims are heard.

A party therefore gains nothing in a pending case by incurring, or provoking, exclusion.

ARTICLE 10 — FEES & ADMINISTRATION

Rule 10.1 — Fees (amended v0.9)

The process is fee-for-service: the forum charges a separate fee for administering the case. The fee is never taken out of the escrowed or disputed funds, and it is not linked to which party prevails.

Fee schedule. The acts that incur a fee are: filing a claim (any intake channel), docketing a Rule 8.8 appeal, and referring a matter for evaluation. Each base fee is either a flat amount or value-scaled — the greater of a published percentage of the amount in dispute and a published per-tier minimum — computed and quoted at filing from the pleaded amount, payable by the invoking party, and identical whichever party prevails. Where the filing-time CasePlan assigns the three-agent Panel, the filing fee adds a 20% Panel surcharge calculated on that base fee. Thus a $20 declaratory base is $24 total, and a $250 computed base is $300 total. A single-arbiter or memorandum matter pays no Panel surcharge. Later routing, escalation, or human review never re-prices a case. A fee is never contingent on the outcome, never payable to or from the opposing party, and never collected from the escrowed corpus; it is charged and collected as a separate payment to the forum. Published amounts. A declaratory-only filing (Rule 3.1) incurs a flat published base fee in place of the value-scaled formula, which is undefined at a zero amount in dispute, plus the same Panel percentage surcharge. The forum may waive any fee; a waiver is quoted and recorded like the fee it forgives. Where a pleading is amended upward by leave (Rule 4.7), the filing fee is topped up by the difference between the fee at the amended amount and the fees already incurred; no refund is made for amending downward. An unpaid filing fee means the matter is never docketed: no proceeding commences, no clock runs, and any protocol or escrow-window default governs the underlying funds. A fee gates intake only — it never suspends, conditions, or alters a matter already docketed.

Version lock. The composition selector, its numeric boundaries, and the Panel surcharge are published in the behavior manifest and stamped on the dispute at commencement. Deployment configuration may repeat those values but may not silently alter them under the same Rules version.

Rule 10.2 — Administration

The administrator registers disputes, manages exchange and the Reviewer queue, and maintains the record. Administrative acts (exchange, reopening, sign-off) are logged.

Rule 10.3 — Allocation of the fee burden (costs) (new v0.9)

The party invoking a fee-incurring act bears its fee when due; the filer bears its own filing fee by default. In an Award whose posture can carry it (a money obligation, or a matter with remedial jurisdiction under Rule 6.5), the Tribunal may, in its discretion and on a party's request, allocate the fee burden between the parties by ordering one party to reimburse the other's paid filing fee as part of the relief — the ordinary "costs follow the event" reconciliation. Allocation moves the burden only between the two consenting parties: the forum's fee is identical whoever prevails, is never enlarged or reduced by the allocation, and is never collected from the escrowed corpus. On corpus-only matters (an escrow allocation without remedial jurisdiction) no costs order is available and the burden stays with the filer.

ARTICLE 11 — GENERAL PROVISIONS

Rule 11.1 — Governing law, seat, and recognition

The governing law and any seat of arbitration are those named in the consent. Whether a seat is named even for on-chain disputes (to preserve a recognition fallback) is a strategic choice.

Rule 11.2 — Notices

Notice is effective when delivered to the address/identifier (including a wallet or platform handle) a party provided at filing.

Rule 11.3 — Language

The language of the proceeding is English unless the consent provides otherwise.

Rule 11.4 — Amendment of these Rules

These Rules may be amended prospectively; amendments are versioned and do not bind already-consented disputes (Rule 1.3).

Rule 11.5 — Severability

If any Rule is held unenforceable, the remainder stays in effect to the maximum extent permitted.

Rule 11.6 — Limitation; no legal advice; UPL

The process resolves the parties' dispute under the terms they consented to; it does not provide legal advice to either party, and nothing in it is the practice of law on a party's behalf. The boundary between "the agent applies the governing terms" and unauthorized practice of law must be confirmed.

APPENDIX A — Default schedule (Rule 4.6)

Same five phases on every track; only the clock changes.

Deadlines are dates certain computed from commencement and are backstops: the joint reveal fires as soon as both sides seal (Rule 4.4), so responsive parties — especially two agents — finish well inside them. Word limits (Rule 4.5): Complaint / Answer 1,500 words; Phase 3 memorial 3,000 words; Phase 4 rebuttal 1,500 words. All values configurable in the consent; not to be set so short as to deny a fair hearing.

APPENDIX B — Evidence reliability tiers (Rule 5.2)

Tiers feed weight, never admissibility (Rule 5.2).

APPENDIX C — Escalation triggers (Rule 7.1, at a glance)

Threshold failure · validation failure · material fabricated cite · 2-1 outcome split or material quantum split on flagged matter · stakes above threshold (default $10k) · non-escrow by default · unresolved credibility/authenticity conflict · novelty / bespoke law · attributable injection / forgery / collusion · irreversibility · liability_only posture.

Fast rung → full single-arbiter review (Rule 4.11): micro-claim value ceiling · tier consent · claim class not enumerated · quarantined evidence or injection · split/conditional fast verdict · over-award · validation failure · rate-limit / ceiling-probe. (Low confidence and evidentiary conflict are recorded, never re-routed — v0.3.) Single-arbiter/Panel → human Reviewer: blocking validation or integrity failure, amount at or above the oversight threshold, and the Article 7 triggers above. No trigger silently changes the locked AI composition.

APPENDIX D — Rule → engine mapping (for engineering)

| 10.1 fees (schedule · quote · records · collection) | lib/fees.ts (single schedule source: base = max(published percent × amount in dispute, per-tier published floor), plus FEE_PANEL_SURCHARGE_PERCENT when the filing-time composition is a Panel; all base prices default 0/off; deterministic quote tiers from filing-time facts; FeeRecord records the base and surcharge breakdown; Rule 4.7 upward top-up via filingFeeTopUp) + lib/fee-payments/adapters.ts (payment-method seam: onchain_usdc receipt verification is the first real adapter, fiat_card is a Stripe stub boundary that refuses cleanly, manual mirrors the Rule 8.8 operator confirmation; unknown methods throw) + lib/fee-payments/usdc.ts (USDC transfer TO the treasury address verified from the tx receipt — address only, base-sepolia only) + lib/x402r/bridge.ts (agent lane: referral acknowledgment carries an HTTP 402 payment challenge; docketing gates on payment; unpaid past the deadline ⇒ filing_fee_pending case closes, never docketed) + GET /api/fees/quote, POST /api/x402r/fee/confirm, the intake fee step, and the party-facing /pricing page (lib/ui/pricing-view.ts, rendered entirely from the schedule). Declaratory-only uses flat FEE_FILING_DECLARATORY_USD as its base, then the ordinary Panel percentage surcharge |

Not yet enforced in code (gaps to close): Rule 1.3 version-binding · Rule 2.5 qualification-record workflow · Rule 4.5 word limits · Rule 4.12 Notice of Errata · Rule 5.15 focused-production workflow · expanded Rule 9.2 declaration-sanctions workflow · Rule 9.4 data-handling/training tiers · Rule 10.3 costs allocation (the Tribunal-discretion costs order has no engine mechanic yet — the fee burden stays filer-bears in practice until it ships). Rule 5.14's two filing forms are enforced, but signer capacity, execution location, and agent ratification remain counsel/product gates. The v0.5 additions all shipped 2026-07-08 — Rule 5.7 challenge raising flow, Rule 5.14 attestation, Rule 2.5 named reviewer, Rule 2.7 reviewer neutrality/recusal, Rule 4.10 testimony-session direction, Rule 9.5 exclusion, Appendix E hash recipe v2 — see Appendix D. The v0.6 Rule 8.8 appeal mechanism shipped 2026-07-08 (row above); its fee collection remains operator-manual (APPEAL_FEE_USD recorded, docketing gated on confirmation) but the fee now also lives on the shared Rule 10.1 fee ledger (v0.9). (Rule 6.10 disclosure is partly enforced — see mapping above.)

APPENDIX E — Award-hash canonicalization (Rules 6.9, 8.4) (new v0.5)

The award hash committed to award signing and on-chain notarization is computed by a published, versioned recipe, so a party, auditor, or court can independently recompute it from the served Award:

• Recipe v2 (current). The hash input is a JSON document serialized canonically: all object keys sorted lexicographically by UTF-16 code unit, string values Unicode NFC-normalized, numbers in ECMAScript shortest round-trip decimal form, no insignificant whitespace, UTF-8 encoded, hashed with SHA-256. The document covers: the Rule version, the dispute id, the award posture, the full funds ledger in the order issued (ledger order is part of the award), the source opinion id, the SHA-256 of the operative reasoned opinion text, and the sorted content hashes (Rule 5.4) of every considered exhibit. Fields with no value in a given disposition (e.g. no operative opinion on an escalation) are carried as explicit nulls, never omitted.
• Time is proven by notarization, not baked into the hash. The hash covers award content; the on-chain notarization timestamp proves when that content existed.
• Versioning. Every signed or notarized hash records its recipe version; verification recomputes under the recorded version, so a recipe change never invalidates a previously issued award. Recipe v1 (legacy: unordered JSON serialization over dispute id, funds, and source opinion id) remains verifiable for awards that recorded it.
• Amendments. A clerical correction (Rule 8.5) or additional award (Rule 8.7) re-hashes under the current recipe, records the recipe version, and re-signs/re-notarizes where configured.

Cross-references: mechanism.md · panel-architecture.md · opinion-format.md · escalation-logic.md · consent-agreement-skeleton.md · enforceability-strategy.md.