--- title: Review pre-arbitration response and escalate to arbitration description: After you raised a pre-arbitration request in the Chargeback stage of Mastercard transaction dispute, review the response and decide whether to accept, reject, or escalate the pre arbitration to arbitration. locale: en-US canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/financial-services-operations/dispute-management/review-prearbitration-response-escalate-arbitration.html release: australia product: Dispute Management classification: dispute-management topic_type: task last_updated: "2026-03-12" reading_time_minutes: 5 breadcrumb: [Chargeback, Processing a Mastercard dispute, Resolving disputes with Mastercard, Processing, Use, Dispute Management, Banking applications, Financial Services Operations \(FSO\)] --- # Review pre-arbitration response and escalate to arbitration After you raised a pre-arbitration request in the Chargeback stage of Mastercard transaction dispute, review the response and decide whether to accept, reject, or escalate the pre arbitration to arbitration. ## Before you begin Role required: sn\_bom\_credit\_card.dispute\_agent or sn\_bom\_credit\_card.dispute\_agent\_connector. **Important:** For the agent connector role to work, it must be combined with one of the CSM industry data model roles. For more information, see [Roles and Personas](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/financial-services-operations/fso-combine-csm-industry-roles.md). ## About this task If the agent is not satisfied with the merchant’s pre-arbitration response, the existing request is escalated to arbitration. One of the following scenarios is possible: - Accept the pre-arbitration: Review and accept the response, then close the chargeback. - Reject without escalation: Review and reject the response, but choose not to proceed with arbitration. - Escalate to arbitration: Respond by escalating the existing pre-arbitration to arbitration for further resolution. If Card Data Security is installed and configured, **Attachments** in the contextual side panel will handle files differently in transaction records. For more information, see [Manage attachments in Card Data Security](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/financial-services-operations/dispute-management/manage-attachments-in-card-data-security.md). ## Procedure 1. Navigate to **All** > **Financial Services Operations** > **Workspace**. 2. Select the lists icon \(\[Omitted image "inline-data-vis-96px-list.png"\] Alt text: lists icon\). 3. In the **Lists** tab under **Card disputes service cases**, open the case list. - For your assigned cases, select **Assigned to me**. - For all dispute cases, select **All**. 4. In the list, select which case you want to work on. If you want to work on a case that isn't assigned to you yet, you can assign it to yourself by selecting **Assign to me**. 5. Select the **Playbook** tab. 6. In the **Processing** tab, select the transaction ID. 7. Select the **Review pre-arbitration response and escalate to arbitration** task in **Dispute Workspace**. 8. On the form, fill in the required fields and any other related information. 9. If the **Dispute response** isn't retrieved, select **Get pre arbitration response** to fetch the merchant response. **Note:** In case the merchant is providing documents with the pre-arbitration response, check the **Activity** section for the document attachment or a download failure message. 10. If a download failure message is displayed in the **Activity** work notes, select **Get acquirer document** to fetch the pre-arbitration response document from the merchant. 11. Select **Add file** to attach supporting documents to the task. **Note:** - You must upload a single `.zip` file whenever you submit documents to Mastercard. - When integrated with Mastercard's Mastercom APIs, the system automatically compresses multiple attachments into a single zip file. It also validates attached files against Mastercard requirements for file type and size, and alerts you when any attachment doesn’t meet Mastercard requirements. For more information, see [Mastercard document requirements](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/financial-services-operations/mastercard-image-and-document-requirements.md). 12. Select one of the following options from the **Response outcome** drop-down.
Option Description
**Unresolved** Select this option if the cardholder isn’t happy with the merchant's response on pre-arbitration and wants to escalate to arbitration. The **Escalate to arbitration** drop-down is displayed. Select one of the following options: - **Yes** to proceed with arbitration. Select **Continue** and **Escalate to arbitration**. **Note:** If an error message is displayed in the **Activity** work notes, the **Escalate to arbitration** button displays again to retry. The **Arbitration response received** drop-down is displayed. - Select **Yes** if you have received a response from the merchant. The next task [Review arbitration response](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/financial-services-operations/dispute-management/review-arbitration-response-mc.md) is displayed. - Select **No** if you have not received a response from the merchant. The case goes in the favor of the cardholder and the transaction moves to Financial adjustments 1. - **No** to end the chargeback, then the transaction moves to the Financial adjustments 2. The task is then marked as Complete.
**Resolved** Accept the chargeback response and resolve the dispute. The transaction moves to Financial adjustments 1.
**Note:** In case of integration with Mastercard's Mastercom APIs, if the task state changes to Document Upload Pending after you select **Escalate to arbitration**, then the attached document isn't uploaded to Mastercard. 13. To reupload the document, delete and replace your attachment with one that meets Mastercard's requirements, then select **Upload document**. For more information, see [Mastercard document requirements](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/financial-services-operations/mastercard-image-and-document-requirements.md). 14. If you want to stop and withdraw the case for any reason, such as you've selected a wrong option, select **Withdraw case**. The task is marked as Closed Complete and a new **Review pre-arbitration response and escalate to arbitration** task is automatically generated. **Note:** This action is available only in case of integration with Mastercard's Mastercom APIs. ## What to do next - When you escalate the pre-arbitration to an arbitration, the request is sent to Mastercard and the state of the task changes to Awaiting External Info. - Once a response is received from the merchant, the **Arbitration response received** value is marked as **Yes**. The next activity [Review arbitration response](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/financial-services-operations/dispute-management/review-arbitration-response-mc.md) is displayed. - If you don’t receive a response from the merchant, then the case goes in favor of the cardholder and the appropriate task is displayed based on the policy. **Parent Topic:**[Chargeback in Mastercard transaction disputes](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/financial-services-operations/dispute-management/chargeback-stage-mastercard.md)