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Last week the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals wrote what should be the final chapter in one of the largest international arbitrations to emerge from the US financial crisis of 2007-2008. The case was an “international” arbitration only in the sense that Claimant was a Swiss company while Respondent was a US affiliate of a Swiss investment bank. The arbitration took place in New York under the arbitration rules of the Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and resulted in an award issued by a three-member tribunal, without reasons as is customary in FINRA arbitrations, in favor of Claimant for…
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(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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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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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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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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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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