English Justice for an American Company?

Christopher C. French, Professor of Practice at Penn State Law, has published “English Justice for an American Company?,” 97 Tex. L. Rev. Online __ (2018).  In his scholarly work, Professor French discusses arbitrator neutrality in the context of a United Kingdom insurance dispute related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is the abstract:

This Essay addresses the Halliburton Co. v. Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd. case, which is pending before England’s Supreme Court. The issue before the Court is whether it is appropriate for the “neutral” arbitrator, who has a history of serving as a party-appointed arbitrator for Chubb, to serve as the “neutral” arbitrator in the matter while simultaneously serving as a party-appointed arbitrator for Chubb in another related arbitration proceeding involving the same insurance policy form and the same underlying Deepwater Horizon incident. The lower courts declined to remove the arbitrator. The Essay also addresses the question of whether London arbitration proceedings under a Bermuda Form policy are sufficiently fair to American policyholders to justify their continued use if the lower courts’ rulings in the case are not reversed.

This and other journal articles written by Professor French may be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network.

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