Peter A. Scarpato

Peter Scarpato is a full-time alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) professional, whose experience over twenty years as a senior business executive and counsel for large, private and public companies with billions of dollars in U.S. and international business gives him a singular in-house, global view of the benefits and costs of effective, efficient ADR.

For seven years, at American International Group, first as a manager of AIG’s newly formed Run Off Division and later as Chief Operating Officer and ultimately Profit Center Manager of AIG’s Global Surety Division, Scarpato was in charge of all accounting, claims, credit, legal and underwriting departments necessary to control and manage the wind-down of discontinued business and produce and maintain a line of profitable new business. The Surety Division represented a combined worldwide contract and commercial book of business in the billions of dollars.

As COO and Profit Center Manager, Scarpato’s primary duties included: (a) working directly with in-house and outside accounting, claims, construction, engineering, legal and underwriting specialists to analyze, adjust, negotiate, and settle several multimillion dollar claims and other disputes involving the largest US contractors and well-known public and privately owned construction projects; (b) analyze the history, management, reputation, creditworthiness, operations and financial experience of the largest, most successful US and international contractors and commercial businesses to recommend, issue, track and adjust hundreds of millions of dollars in lines of credit for surety bonds used in residential, commercial, road, bridge, highway, rail, hard rock and coal mining, and other types of projects; and (c) manage the run off of hundreds of millions of dollars in surety bonds issued to large and medium-sized contractors experiencing job-related and account related financial difficulties due in part to their inability to maintain operations at jobsites and obtain bonds.

Earlier, for twelve years he served as Executive Vice President and then as General Counsel of American Centennial Insurance Company, a large U.S. insurer and reinsurer whose multi-billion dollar business was shut down and in “run off.” The run-off process requires a small group of senior executives to carefully manage down all facets of the company’s operations and liabilities through a combination of coordinated activities, including extensive negotiations and close outs of contractual relationships and, where necessary, the hands-on control of dozens of litigations, arbitrations and mediations. Scarpato began his career as a lawyer, then moved into the corporate sector, working first for the former New York Telephone Company where he specialized in the rating and regulation of telephone service.

With more than 25 years of dispute management and resolution experience, Scarpato is well qualified to offer a comprehensive perspective on the proper and reasonable resolution of all types of disputes. Since 2005, he has headed his own ADR firm. He has served in over 175 cases as either arbitrator or mediator, and has negotiated hundreds of complex commercial disputes and settlements involving both insurance and non-insurance matters. His current ADR practice covers all forms of civil, commercial, contract, and insurance disputes, with special expertise in property/casualty and life insurance and reinsurance, construction, run-off business, securities, surety and warranty. He has mediated numerous disputes among large, medium and small-sized contractors and public and private owners involving complex business and commercial construction projects, million dollar “dream” homes, restorations of historic buildings, and normal residential construction projects.

Scarpato is a frequent lecturer on alternative dispute resolution, insurance and reinsurance issues at industry-related and continuing legal education seminars, including programs sponsored by AIRROC (Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Run-Off Companies), American Conference Institute, ARIAS-U.S., Marcus Evans, LexisNexis Mealey’s, the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education, and the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators. He has published articles in Harris Martin’s Reinsurance Report, New Jersey Law Journal, JTW News, and Mealey’s Litigation Report: Reinsurance.

Scarpato has served as Editor-in-Chief of AIRROC Matters, AIRROC’s newsletter covering run-off company issues, and is on the Board of Editors of Harris Martin’s Reinsurance Report. He also teaches a course called “A 3-D View of ADR” for the Insurance Society of Philadelphia, is a frequent instructor in ARIAS-U.S.’s arbitrator training workshops, and volunteers his time to participate in mock mediation training sessions at NYU School of Law in New York City.

Scarpato has performed in wedding and dance bands over the years on guitar, saxophone, and as a vocalist. He currently sings as a baritone and bass in two choral groups, including an all male a cappella choir called “Cordus Mundi” and “The Capitol Singers of Trenton.”

Scarpato has an undergraduate BA in Slavic Languages and Literature from Rutgers University and a JD from Rutgers School of Law, Camden. He is a member of several arbitration and mediation associations and programs, including ARIAS-U.S., Construction Dispute Resolution Services, Inc., FINRA (formerly the NASD) and the ADR programs of the State and Federal Courts of New Jersey and New York.