Marc J. Goldstein Arbitrator & Mediator NYC

Recent Posts

May 29, 2011

Joinder of Parties Under UNCITRAL Rule 17(5): An Important Efficiency Advance

(This is a condensed Arbitration Commentaries version, without citations, of what may become a longer and more formal article on joinder of new parties in an ongoing international arbitration. The source material for this Commentary consists of the various reports of the UNCITRAL Working Group and the notes of the UNCITRAL Secretariat, which may be found on the UNCITRAL website.)   The joinder of persons as new parties to an ongoing international arbitration, before an arbitral tribunal already appointed by the original parties or confirmed by an appointing authority, has presented difficulties that have not yet yielded to a unifying…
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May 25, 2011

Navigating Arbitration Commentaries: A Note on New Features

In the past few weeks, new features have been added to Arbitration Commentaries. Some are for readers’ benefit. Some are for the writer. You will now see the headlines of the three most recent posts preceding the current post, set up as links in the “Recent Posts” area on the right margin. Also, please know, if you had not already discovered, that by clicking on the “Search Commentaries” space in the left margin at the top, you may word-search the entire archive of Commentaries dating back to the inception of this “Blog” in early 2009. The remaining changes are designed…
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May 25, 2011

Two New Arbitrability Decisions, Briefly Noted

Today I briefly note two recent arbitrability decisions of US federal district courts, one in Los Angeles and one in Connecticut. In Los Angeles, the Court granted a motion to compel arbitration filed by an affiliate of Roche Pharmaceuticals, and stayed the action pending completion of an ongoing arbitration in Zurich, but did not dismiss the case entirely. The Court evidently found that plaintiff’s single cause of action for a declaratory judgment of patent invalidity was outside the scope of the agreement to arbitrate, but that whether the parties’ patent license agreement required patent validity to be determined by the…
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May 18, 2011

A Shift in Attitude About Arbitral Orders for Pre-Award Security?

In a not infrequent scenario in international commercial arbitration, the Claimant seeks to be paid for services rendered or goods delivered or intellectual property licensed to the Respondent, and the Respondent offers a series of defenses and counterclaims that, according to Claimant, are merely contrivances designed to obscure the fact that Respondent is in financial distress and so it cannot or rather would prefer not to pay the obligation. If the Claimant then asks the Tribunal to grant an interim measure in the form of security to satisfy an eventual award of money damages, the first line of opposition will often…
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May 17, 2011

Party’s Right to Appoint Replacement Co-Arbitrator is Inherent in Agreement, US Court Holds

A US district judge in Manhattan held last week that a party’s right to appoint a replacement co-arbitrator upon resignation of its original appointee is inherent in an arbitration agreement that provides for party-appointed arbitrators, even when there is nothing specifically stated about replacement of an arbitrator who resigns. The Court so ruled in an ongoing reinsurance arbitration  (Northwestern Nat’l Ins. Co. v. Insco, Ltd., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50789 (S.D.N.Y. May 12, 2011)). In an arbitration marked by charges of bias and conflict of interest against the presiding arbitrator and the respondent reinsurer’s party appointee, the latter eventually resigned…
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May 11, 2011

Arbitral Award of Legal Fees Upheld Despite No Specific Grant of Power in the Arbitration Clause

We are reminded by a painstaking recent opinion issued by a federal district judge in Manhattan that New York State arbitration law often will have a very limited role to play when the parties elect to conduct arbitration in New York under a contract that contains a general choice of law provision selecting New York law. This is certainly true for U.S. domestic arbitration, and should apply equally to international arbitration where the parties’ choice of New York as a seat of arbitration should reasonably imply that they have selected U.S. federal arbitration law, and not also the laws of…
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