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Hall Street Associates v. Mattel, Inc. and the Uncertain Future of Manifest Disregard of the Law By Marc J. Goldstein The decision of the US Supreme Court in Hall Street Associates v Mattel, Inc. , in March 2008, was possibly the Court’s most important ruling on federal arbitration law in this nine-year-old milennium. The Court granted certiorari to decide, and did decide, an unsettled important question: whether the scope of federal judicial review of arbitral awards may be expanded, by contractual agreement, beyond what the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) provides. That question was answered in the negative. But the provocative…
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has upheld the arbitration clause in a reinsurance contract between Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s and a Louisiana-based self-insurance fund. The Court rejected a contention by the Louisiana fund that a 1945 federal statute that commits insurance regulation to state law, permits a state to deny enforcement of arbitration clauses in insurance contracts.  Safety National Casualty Corp. v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 20917 (5th Cir. Sept. 29, 2008).  The decision represents an important victory for foreign and offshore reinsurance firms, who regularly seek to arbitrate disputes with…
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