Originally from:
AAA Yearbook on Arbitration and the Law - 23rd Edition - Hardcover
AAA Yearbook on Arbitration and the Law - 23rd Edition - Electronic
Preview Page
CHAPTER 3
"MANIFEST DISREGARD" OF LAW?
James H. Carter and Florence J. Goal
With the passage of the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA") on February 12, 1925, Congress instituted a policy favoring the resolution of disputes through arbitration.1 The FAA provides grounds for vacatur of arbitral awards under Sections 10 and for their correction or modification under Section 11, but the statute provides quite deferential standards for this of judicial review. Section 10 of the FAA provides that
[i]n any of the following cases the United States court in and for the district wherein the award was made may make an order vacating the award upon application of any party to the arbitration (1) where the award was procured by corruption, fraud or undue means; (2) where there was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators, or either of them; (3) where the arbitrators were guilty of misconduct in refusing to postpone the hearing, upon sufficient cause shown, or in refusing to hear evidence pertinent and material to the controversy; or of any misbehavior by which the rights of any party have been prejudiced; or (4) where the arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final and definite award upon the subject matter submitted was not made.2
But until recently, federal courts also recognized a further standard of review, not expressly provided for in the FAA, permitting vacatur of awards upon a finding that they were arrived at through a process
James H. Carter is a Partner in the New York office of Dewey &
LeBoeuf LLP and co-chair of its International Arbitration and Cross-
Border Dispute Resolution practice, in which he is active as counsel and
as an arbitrator. He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School,
attended Cambridge University as a Fulbright Scholar and served as Law
Clerk to Hon. Robert P. Anderson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit. Mr. Carter is a former Chairman of the Board of
Directors of the American Arbitration Association and is a former Chair
of its Nominating and Governance Committee, and during 2004-06 he
was President of the American Society of International Law. He is also a
former Chair of the American Bar Association Section of International
Law and Practice and served as Chair of its Committee on International
Commercial Arbitration. Mr. Carter has chaired both the International
Affairs Council and the Committee on International Law of the
Association of the Bar of the City of New York, as well as the
International Law Committee of the New York State Bar Association. He
has served as a member of the London Court of International Arbitration
and Vice President of its North American Council and is a member of the
Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Florence J. Goal is an Associate in the Investigations and Criminal
Litigation group of the Washington, D.C. office of Wilmer Cutler
Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP. She has experience in complex
international commercial litigation, securities, and insurance. She is a
graduate of Rice University and Harvard Law School.
