US federal district judges who do not frequently grapple with the New York Convention and Chapter Two of the FAA, and in many Circuits lack clear appellate guidance, often struggle to apply the terms of the treaty and the statute to novel and unusual situations. A new case in point comes from the US District Court in Maryland, which reached a correct result in denying recognition of a partial award while confirming the final award, but missed an opportunity to make an explicit and persuasive application of Article V of the Convention to justify denying recognition to the partial award….
Read More »
Recent Posts
September 02, 2009
Public Policy As a Basis to Deny Recognition Under the New York Convention: A Missed Opportunity
August 31, 2009
U.S. Public Policy as Basis to Deny Enforcement of Arbitration Agreement: More Discussion of the Thomas v. Carnival Corp. case
At the Kluwer Arbitration Blog you will find an interesting comment by Paul Friedland on the Thomas v. Carnival Corp. decision of the Eleventh Circuit. I commented on the Thomas case here on July 7, 2009.Below is the text of my comment today posted on the Kluwer Arbitration Blog. Paul, The concerns you mention are serious ones; yours is a different and insightful reading of a case discussed in my Arbitration Commentaries on July 7, 2009. (http://arbblog.lexmarc.us — “U. S. Public Policy As Basis to Nullify Arbitration Agreement: Beyond the Bounds of Mitsubishi?”) What troubles me most about Thomas is…
Read More »
August 26, 2009
Draft UNCITRAL Rules Revisions: Interim Measures
The proposed new text of Article 26 concerning interim measures of protection is a considerable expansion from the 1976 rule. It reflects the extensive practical experience of arbitrators with different types of interim measures. It also reflects the convergence of legal standards into a set a generally applicable transnational norms. The 1976 version of the rule was concise, perhaps to a fault. It permitted the arbitral tribunal to “take any interim measures it deems necessary in respect of the subject matter of the dispute. ” The only specific example mentioned, although not by way of limitation, was “measures for the…
Read More »
August 20, 2009
Draft UNCITRAL Rules Revisions: Arbitral Power to Rule on Jurisdiction
The Working Group on Arbitration of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) will convene for its 51st session in Vienna, Austria, from September 14-18, 2009. For the past two years, the Working Group has been engaged in developing a proposed revised draft of the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules (“Rules”). When completed, this will be the first wholesale revision of the Rules since their initial adoption in 1976. I will attend the Working Group session as a member of the observer delegation of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. In this post and ensuing…
Read More »
August 14, 2009
International Litigation: Pleading Under the Alien Tort Statute
A new commentary on this subject is posted under Legal Developments at my general website. Click-through on the link under “Links and Resources” at the left margin, for Marc J. Goldstein Litigation and Arbitration Chambers (www.lexmarc.us).
August 14, 2009
Challenging the Replacement of a Party-Appointed Arbitrator
The Seventh Circuit U. S. Court of Appeals has addressed one of the difficult issues arising from the mid-stream replacement of a party-appointed arbitrator. The Court held that the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) generally requires that a party who contests its opponent’s appointment of a replacement party-arbitrator, on the ground that the substitution is not within the agreement if the parties, must do so by an application to the Court at the time of the substitution, or else the objection will be forfeited. WellPoint, Inc. v. John Hancock Life Ins. Co., 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 17841 (7th Cir. Aug. 7,…
Read More »
