A resource for litigators, in-house counsel, and arbitrators
Three decisions came out recently that offer guidance on appealing from arbitration awards. Here are three pearls of arbitration appeal wisdom, one from each case:
1. If you want to appeal from an arbitration, you must have a record. Sounds basic, right? But many parties, either due to confidence they will win in arbitration or …
You may have already heard that SCOTUS affirmed arbitrators’ authority to interpret contractual prerequisites to arbitration last week in BG Group, PLC v. Republic of Argentina. But that is just one of a number of recent decisions from high courts on the deference due arbitrators.
In the BG Group case, the D.C. Circuit had…
Just how hard is it to vacate an arbitration award? The Sixth Circuit recently held that even if the arbitrator reached a result directly contrary to federal precedent, the arbitration award would be upheld. And the Tenth Circuit found that even if the arbitrator based his award on an agreement that does not support the…
In the Hall Street decision in 2008, SCOTUS held that parties could not contractually enlarge Section 10 of the Federal Arbitration Act by agreeing that a court could vacate the arbitration award for reasons not found in that section. This week, the Ninth Circuit held that parties also cannot contractually restrict Section 10 by providing…
In recent weeks, both the Second and Sixth Circuits showed how difficult it is to vacate arbitration awards.
The Second Circuit decision has more drama, so I’ll start there. In Kolel Beth Yechiel Mechil of Tartik-Ov, Inc. v. YLL Irrevocable Trust, __ F.3d __, 2013 WL 4609100 (2d Cir. Aug. 30, 2013), the losing party…
After reading more than 40 decisions about arbitration from state high courts, issued just in the past eight months, I have two bits of wisdom to share. First, that is not the best way to spend your summer vacation, even for a devoted arbitration nerd. And second, there are arbitration issues percolating in state courts…
In two decisions this week, courts consider whether arbitration awards can be vacated based on arbitrators’ decisions to exclude evidence. In both cases, the courts affirm an arbitrator’s authority to make reasonable evidentiary decisions — excluding hearsay and denying tardy subpoena requests — as long as those decisions do not deny a party a fair…
The recent Sutter decision drives home repeatedly that a court may not vacate an arbitrator’s decision under the FAA just because a judge thinks the arbitrator reached the wrong result. Justice Kagan said that under Section 10(a)(4) the court cannot second-guess the award, not even in the face of “grave error.” Instead, the award must…
In a dispute over whether an arbitrator has authority to grant a video game developer and publisher a perpetual license in the intellectual property as a remedy for the developer’s fraud and breaches of contract, the Fifth Circuit found that the arbitrator’s creative award must be upheld under the Federal Arbitration Act, and set forth…
In an opinion released yesterday, the Seventh Circuit schooled appellant’s counsel first on the application of the New York Convention and Panama Convention, then on the high standard of review it applies to commercial arbitration awards, and finally expressed profound disappointment with the frequency of motions to vacate arbitration awards. “Attempts to obtain judicial review…