On 23 October 2015, an amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 took effect and changed how long a commercial dispute in India could drag on. For the first time, arbitrators had a statutory deadline to deliver their award. For businesses that had watched disputes run for years, it mattered a great deal.

Most people still skim past the arbitration clause when they sign a contract. It reads like boilerplate, so it gets copied from an old template and nobody looks at it again until something goes wrong. Is that a sensible way to treat the one clause that decides how you will fight if the deal falls apart?

Here is a look at what deserves a second read.

1. Make sure it really is an arbitration agreement

Section 7 of the Act says an arbitration agreement must be in writing. An exchange of letters or electronic communications that records the agreement can also count. The trouble usually comes from loose wording.…