Recent Posts

Just when you thought America’s international arbitration lawyers had finally moved on from the exhausted (but not quite conclusive) debate over whether the federal international judicial assistance statute codified at 28 USC §1782 (“1782”) applies to private international commercial arbitrations, along come two decisions from two federal district courts, involving essentially one coordinated quest for discovery in the same arbitration.  Each federal district court decision reaches the same result: thumbs down on the proposed use of 1782 for non-party discovery in private arbitration because a private, contract-based Arbitral Tribunal is not the type of “tribunal” Congress had in mind when,…
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Dear Readers, if you turned to these pages to learn about recent decisions in big, impactful international investment disputes over (lawful) expropriation of maritime assets in Venezuela or (alleged) denial of justice to American energy titans in Ecuador, you may be disappointed. (But see “Nice Try Venezuela”, below). This post is inspired by a gritty quotidian domestic dispute, between a Miami limousine service and one of its drivers — the cherubic talkative type who might ferry an eminent international arbitrator to Miami International Airport for an early morning flight to Washington. But seriously. We need to talk — about the…
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“The Yankees win!! The….Yankees…..WIN!!!“ New Yorkers of a certain sporting obsession will recognize this as the triumphal incantation that concludes their radio baseball broadcasts, on the not-so-frequent occasions when the Yankees do, as they once did prodigiously, win. New York arbitration lawyers will also recognize this as the form of a “Standard Award” in domestic commercial arbitration. Declare a winner, and sign off. Those of you seeking a primer or a refresher course in the architecture of American arbitration awards would, by reading Tully Construction Co. v. Canam Steel Corp., 2015 WL 906128 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 2, 2015), be informed, or…
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Readers who watch American sports television while preparing briefs to ICSID tribunals will be familiar with a feature called “C’MON MAN!”, showing sports celebrities caught out in acts or declarations of startling incredulity. Surely this feature could be extended on occasion to the arguments of Host States opposing Investor expropriation claims. A case in point is the recent Award in Tidewater v. Venezuela, ICSID Case No. ARB/10/5 (March 17, 2015) (published at www.italaw.com) finding an expropriation, albeit of the lawful variety (once compensation would be determined and paid), of a maritime oil services business that had operated in Venezuelan waters…
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You remember Jacksonville. Situated 480 miles north of Havana, and just south of the Georgia border, it is a place where prominent international arbitrators take afternoon naps at 37,000 feet after downing a glass or two of passable champagne in their capacious first class seats between Miami and New York. It is home to two U.S. Navy bases, a dreadful professional football team, and at least one very meticulous federal district judge who, in what was perhaps her first foray into the thicket of international arbitration after eight years on the federal bench, properly granted an anti-suit injunction against vexatious…
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Here in the United States, where most otherwise-retired lawyers, and a fair number of late-career pastry chefs and insurance sellers, seek to reinvent as commercial arbitrators, the warning to aspiring arbitrators “not to give up [their] day job[s],” at least not without a healthy sustaining pension, is often heard. But one arbitrator in Las Vegas heeded this warning a bit too seriously, causing enough “evident partiality” havoc in the federal district court there to move the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals into an immediate rescue action by means of the rarely-used writ of mandamus. In re Sussex, 2015 WL 327558…
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