The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has temporarily halted an effort to enforce a foreign arbitral awardagainst Uzbekistan where the prevailing party had previously initiated proceedings in France topartially vacatethe same award. The twist...
In Beacon Towers Condominium Trust v. Alex, 473 Mass. 472 (2016) ("Beacon Towers"), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided that an arbitral tribunal had overstepped the bounds of its authority when it awarded attorney's fees pursuant to the Commonwealth's...
As this blog has chronicled in the past, it is extremely difficult for an arbitral award to be vacated. The Federal Arbitration Act and many state arbitral acts provide very limited grounds for vacatur, as courts are reluctant to second-guess an arbitrator's decision....
Alternative dispute resolution is rightly gaining steam as an efficient, fair mechanism for the resolution of complex business disputes. Many companies are redrafting their standard-form contracts to include mandatory arbitration clauses. This is particularly true for...
The Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled that an arbitrator exceeds her authority only when "she awards relief beyond the scope of the arbitration agreement, beyond that to which the parties bound themselves, or enters an award prohibited by law." Conway v. CLC Bio,...
The American Arbitration Association recently released Optional Appellate Arbitration Rules, which aim to provide parties with an opportunity to have appeals of an arbitral award heard within the arbitration process itself. Typically, applications to vacate arbitral...
In yet another example of the great deference accorded to arbitral decisions by U.S. Federal Courts, the Fifth Circuit recently declined to vacate or modify an award based on allegations of arbitrator misconduct. Despite intimations that the conduct of the opposing...
In the recent decision of Oxford Health Plans v. Sutter, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that even a "grave error" of an arbitrator is not enough to vacate an award in most cases. Oxford Health Plans had gone to federal court seeking to vacate an arbitrator's...
Alternative dispute resolution is rightly gaining steam as an efficient, fair mechanism for the resolution of complex business disputes. Many companies are redrafting their standard-form contracts to include mandatory arbitration clauses. This is particularly true for...
Alternative dispute resolution is rightly gaining steam as an efficient, fair mechanism for the resolution of complex business disputes. Many companies are redrafting their standard-form contracts to include mandatory arbitration clauses. This is particularly true for...
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