Columbia Arbitration Day (CAD), held on April 14, 2023, enjoyed record attendance levels this year and was held in the historic Low Memorial Library, a fitting venue for the first in-person CAD since before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Judiciary in International Arbitration Proceedings The morning began with a panel moderated by Professor Alejandro Garro…
2022 was a busy year for the United States Supreme Court’s arbitration docket. The Court spent significant time defining the role of federal courts in arbitration-related litigation: it curbed Section 1782 discovery in support of international arbitration, limited the preferential treatment given to arbitration over litigation, protected the right to individualized arbitration, and limited the…
28 U.S.C. § 1782(a) allows U.S. federal district courts to order discovery against any person or entity “found” in the U.S. “for use” in a proceeding in a “foreign or international tribunal” upon application by “any interested person.” In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court in Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. held that the…
Designed by the United States (“U.S.”) government to enhance the success of its primary sanctions programs, secondary sanctions are intended to prevent, on a global basis, third parties from trading with countries that are subject to sanctions. In a dispute involving the transfer of U.S. dollars between two non-U.S. persons located outside U.S. jurisdiction, these U.S. secondary…
On the third day of the Inaugural California International Arbitration Week, Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center (“SVAMC”) held a webinar on the locus of international disputes. The focus of the session was the shifting seat of international disputes, as arbitration’s centre of gravity is steadily advancing to the Pacific. This westward (from a United…
The inaugural California International Arbitration Week (“CIAW”) took place on March 14 through 18, 2022 and highlighted the attractive features of arbitrating international commercial disputes in California. What better way to begin CIAW than in Hollywood, with a discussion on recent international dispute developments and trends in the film and entertainment industry. The panel featured…
“If they can’t do it in California, it can’t be done anywhere.” – Novelist Taylor Caldwell From its sunlit beaches to its fog-spangled hills, California hosts the world’s fifth largest economy, boasting among its accomplishments Hollywood entertainment, Silicon Valley technology, and Central Valley agricultural produce. In addition to its strong trade ties within the…
This entry is the last in a series of three regarding issues faced by arbitral and financial institutions as a result of restrictions on transfers of funds under primary and secondary sanctions programmes. In the first post, the authors addressed the impact of asset freezes on arbitral institutions and their banks, while the second post…
Benno Kimmelman is an independent arbitrator and active in the New York arbitration community. He teaches international arbitration and international litigation courses at Brooklyn Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, and American University’s Washington College of Law. Edna Sussman is a New York-based arbitrator and mediator. She is the Distinguished ADR Practitioner in Residence at…
In CLMS Mgmt. Servs. et al. v. Amwins Brokerage et al., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considered whether a state law (by operation of the federal McCarran-Ferguson Act, which gives states the authority to regulate the business of insurance) voiding arbitration agreements in insurance contracts reverse-preempted Article II, Section 3 of…
For years, Australia and the U.K. have been the pioneering jurisdictions regarding ownership of law firms. Now, there’s a new kid on the block. Recent developments in a few U.S. states, predominantly Arizona, and a new approach by the American Bar Association (ABA) signal a broad reexamination of the long-entrenched prohibition on non-lawyer participation (ownership…
This post, which follows up on a recent submission in respect of the impact of asset freezes on arbitral and financial institutions, addresses some of the issues that may be faced by such institutions as a result of restrictions that form part of the United States’ secondary sanctions against Iran. A third and final post…
John Steinbeck’s classic novella, “Of Mice and Men,” took a modern day form in the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week – appropriately enough, for purposes of this blog, in an arbitration matter. As others have commented on social media, during oral argument in Badgerow v. Walters, Case No. 20-1143 (U.S. S. Ct.), the Supreme…
Earlier this year, Colombia prevailed in two arbitrations under the Colombia-US Trade Promotion Agreement (“TPA”). The claims were filed by Alberto Carrizosa Gelzis, Felipe Carrizosa Gelzis and Enrique Carrizosa Gelzis (“Carrizosa brothers”) under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, and by Astrida Benita Carrizosa (“Ms. Carrizosa”) under the ICSID Convention. In both arbitrations Ms. Carrizosa and the…
The United States Supreme Court’s June 2020 decision in GE Energy Power Conversion France SAS v. Outokumpu Stainless USA, LLC (“GE Energy“) made clear that, under U.S. law, a non-signatory to an arbitration agreement may invoke equitable estoppel to compel arbitration under Article II(3) of the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of…
The issue of dual nationals’ access to investor-state dispute settlement (“ISDS”) has once again taken the center stage through the recently issued Carrizosa v. Colombia award. Resolved under the auspices of the 2013 UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, the PCA tribunal unanimously dismissed the entire case for lack of jurisdiction ratione personae, in accordance with the provisions…
The Arbitration Committee of the New York City Bar Association has recently published a report titled: “The Functus Officio Problem in Modern Arbitration and a Proposed Solution” (the “Report”). In United States arbitration, the functus officio doctrine instructs that once an arbitrator finishes performance of her office, i.e., renders an award, her authority as an…
The dispute between the former owners of the Yukos oil company and the Russian Federation concerning damages of more than US$50 billion is the largest in the history of arbitration. With thousands of pages written on the topic, the dispute has been summarized in earlier posts (see, amongst others, here and here). Following three arbitrations…
Investor-state international arbitration may provide a way forward for Survivors and their heirs after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision denying claims in two restitution cases regarding Holocaust-era stolen property: Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp (for return of Medieval art stolen by the Nazis) along with the companion case of Republic of Hungary v. Simon…
In this post, we discuss some of the challenges created by the personal jurisdiction requirements under U.S. law (explained below) in enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the U.S. We also delve into details of hurdles posed by the implementation of the personal jurisdiction standard as enunciated in Daimler AG v. Bauman to recognition and…
In the second half of 2020 there have been two heavily discussed challenges to arbitration awards stemming from an arbitrator’s nondisclosure. The more recent, OOGC America, L.L.C. v. Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C, was an appeal in the U.S. Fifth Circuit. The other, Eiser Infrastructure Limited and Energia Solar Luxemburg S.À.R.L. v. Kingdom of Spain, was heard…
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020), known only as “RBG” in many circles, was a native of Brooklyn, New York and only the second woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court bench. Her passing in September 2020, at the age of 87, left a gaping hole in the international community. She was widely…
With the results of the U.S. presidential election announced last week, international lawyers are now looking closely at how the incoming Biden Administration will handle the many challenges facing the global legal order. President-elect Biden has promised to turn away from the unilateralism that marked the Trump presidency and instead focus on multilateral reengagement.1)See, e.g.,…
Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (the “Third Circuit” or the “Court”) addressed what it referred to as a “mind-bending” and “seemingly circular” question “dubbed ‘the queen of all threshold issues’ in arbitration law:” whether a court or arbitrator(s) decides if an agreement exists when the alleged agreement itself “includes an…
