Marc J. Goldstein Arbitrator & Mediator NYC

Recent Posts

September 23, 2010

Principles Governing Removal of Convention Cases to Federal Court Clarified in Recent Decision

For arbitration lawyers outside the United States, the allocation of adjudicatory power, in arbitration-related cases, between U.S. federal courts and courts of the individual states, is considered to be a rather arcane subject. But it is a subject of keen interest to American lawyers acting for their foreign clients because of the perceived decisive advantages of litigating issues arising under the New York Convention and the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”)  before a federal district court judge. Certain provisions in federal procedural law allow for a defendant in a case brought in a state court to insist that the case proceed…
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September 15, 2010

Arbitral Subpoenas for the Non-Party Witness: Some Problems and Possible Solutions

  This is the initial draft of what will eventually be a longer and hopefully more thoughtful article concerning the difficulties, under existing American law and practice, of arbitral subpoenas in U.S.-seated international arbitrations. Your comments on this draft, on this site or to the author privately, are most welcome.     Parties to international commercial contracts often select New York as the place of their arbitration, and they do so for a variety of reasons, some of them related to the hospitable legal and professional environment for arbitration, including New York’s concentration of skilled arbitrators who are well-versed in…
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September 08, 2010

Second Circuit Adopts “Interest Analysis” Choice of Law Rule in Nazi-Era Stolen Art Dispute

  International arbitrators sitting in New York will from time to time need to apply or at least consider New York choice-of-law rules. It is therefore noteworthy when those rules evolve in a particular direction. New York “conflicts” rules (as New York lawyers call them) have for many years been a hybrid of “traditional” rules — based on such talismans as the place of a transaction or the nationality of a party in interest — and the more modern view that “interest analysis” should control. The shift in favor of interest analysis gained momentum recently in a decision of the…
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August 30, 2010

Arbitral Control Over The Ethics of Advocacy: Thoughts

Enactment of a uniform code of ethics governing the conduct of counsel in international arbitrations is a much-discussed topic. Whether cross-cultural standard-setters such as the International Bar Association can, or should, achieve such a complex and difficult mission remains to be seen. A dimension of the problem that should not be overlooked is that counsel in international arbitrations often will leap at the opportunity to accuse an adversary of an ethical violation. This is rather commonplace in the rough-and-tumble context of American civil litigation, and the problem in international commercial arbitrations exists substantially but not entirely because of the participation…
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August 25, 2010

Third Circuit Court Joins Others In Holding That Domestic Standards for Vacating Award Apply to Convention Awards Made in the US

Article (V)(1)(e) of the New York Convention provides that a Court asked to confirm a Convention award may refuse to do so on the ground that the award has been or may be set aside by a competent court of the country in which, or under the law of which, the award was made. While it is sometimes said that the Convention does not concern itself with vacatur of awards but only with grounds for a court to refuse to confirm an award, Article (V)(1)(e) is widely understood to have the effect of incorporating domestic law vacatur standards at the…
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August 19, 2010

D.C. Federal Court Rejects Investor’s Section 1782 Petition As Circumvention of ICSID Tribunal’s Powers

As the debate rages on concerning the potential use of 28 USC 1782 to secure non-party discovery for use in international commercial arbitrations, rather little attention is paid to the fact that judicial assistance under section 1782 is a matter of discretion not of right, and that federal judges may not wish to interfere with the arbitral tribunal’s control over the proceedings. Such reluctance to interfere figured prominently last week in the decision of a federal district judge in Washington to deny section 1782 relief, sought by the American claimant in an ICSID bilateral investment treaty (“BIT”) arbitration against the…
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