Earlier this week, the Fifth Circuit handed down an opinion holding that personal jurisdiction did not exist (link is to .pdf) as to several Russian companies that had been sued by a Texan company for allegedly breaching an agreement to produce natural gas from the Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field. Since the contract was executed in Russia and performance would have taken place in Russia, the Court affirmed a trial court ruling that no personal jurisdiction existed against the Russian defendants. Why do we care about this? Well, because it’s Spring Break and there’s not much else going on in the world of Texas arbitrability law. Also, the contract in question contained an arbitration clause requiring arbitration in Russia pursuant to Russian law, a fact the Court noted in its personal jurisdiction analysis. The Russians, of course, had also moved to compel arbitration, but since their plea to the jurisdiction was granted the Court did not reach the arbitration point. Moncrief Oil Int’l, Inc. v. OAO Gazprom, et al., ___ F.3d. ___ (5th Cir. 2007) (Cause No. 06-10552)

A couple weeks ago, we talked about the basic un-appealability of arbitral awards, and the idea that any potential alternative rule must be pursued at the front-end: parties can contract for some sort of appellate review of an arbitral award, but if it’s not in the arbitration clause there is nothing beyond what the FAA or the TAA (in Texas) allows, plus extremely limited non-statutory grounds for challenging confirmation of awards. Which is to say, for the most part, that arbitral awards are not appealable. We should have mentioned, of course, that while drafting some sort of appellate review into an arbitration clause is (we think) allowable in Texas and the Fifth Circuit, it is not possible everywhere. On Monday, the ICM’s blog posted a great memo laying out the different approaches taken by various federal circuits on this issue. Amazing how timing works out some times. Finally, I would note that we’ve written a fairly detailed CLE paper on this very subject, which is linked-to in our prior post on this topic (I’m not linking again because a whole section of the prior paper was rendered obsolete by the Positive Software en banc opinion). We’ve updated the paper once, but it’s due for another update, which should happen in the next couple weeks as Karl gets ready for a CLE talk in Corpus Christi. Once we finish the updated paper I’ll post a link. Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, law

The Fifth Circuit just released an opinion reversing a district court’s vacatur (link is to .pdf file) of an arbitral award in the collective bargaining context. The opinion sets out the standard of review for arbitral awards when the arbitration is established by the collective bargaining process. Since this is an area in which we do not practice, I’m not offering any detail or analysis, but the opinion seemed worth noting. Resolution Performance Prod., LLC v. Paper Allied Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers International Union, ___ F3d ___ (5th Cir. 2007) (Cause No. 05-30813) Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, Fifth Circuit, law

This morning, the Texas Supreme Court handed down opinions in six cases; none had anything to do with arbitration. In an opinion on interlocutory appeal of an order certifying a class, Citizens Ins. Co. of America, et al. v. Daccach, et al., the Court decertified a class and remanded the case to the trial court. The case is a potential class action involving alleged violations of the Texas Securities Act. Moki Mac River Expeditions v. Drugg involves a discussion of specific personal jurisdiction in Texas. City of Galveston v. State of Texas marks the first time, according to the Court, that the State of Texas has sued one of its cities for money damages. Can it do that? You’ll have to read the opinion. The other three opinions are short and per curiam, and involve issues relating to writs of executions based on default judgments, the segregation of unrecoverable attorneys’ fees from recoverable attorneys’ fees, and preservation of error. We’re mighty busy around here, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more. Technorati Tags: arbitration, Texas Supreme Court, law