Summary

The seller pays the arbitration fee irrespective of who initiates the dispute. Even if the dispute was successfully resolved by the arbitrator, the buyer does not have any obligation towards the arbitation process as he is not the one paying for it.

Vulnerability Details

Buyer can initiate a dispute for minor issues and delay the payment as buyer has no obligation towards the fee. Once arbitation is completed, even if the buyer was awarded 0, Seller will still take the hit for the arbitration fee.

Impact

Seller will loose portion of funds for arbitration if initiated. For buyer, there is no reason to hesitate even for minor disagreement.

Tools Used

Manual Review

Recommendations

a) buyer should deposit for arbitration separately. In confirm receipt, the funds are returned back.
b) At the time of raising dispute, if seller should deposit the arbitrator fee.
c) resolveDispute to allocate the burden of arbitrator fee in proportions based on buyerAward.
if buyerAward = 0, the since seller won the case, the funds are release to the seller with and buyer pays arbitrator fee.
if buyerAward = balance, buyer won the case, the seller pays the arbitrator fee and buyer gets full funds back.
if buyerAward is partial, the fees are prorated accordingly.