Karl and I have written about arbitral awards and their potential appealability, and we’ve blogged on the subject several times (most recently here). Here in the Fifth Circuit, it is permissible to write a provision for appeal into an arbitration clause, allowing for judicial review of an arbitral award on a basis other than the extremely limited basis provided by the Federal Arbitration Act or the Texas Arbitration Act. However, not all ju

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On Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit released an opinion confirming an arbitral award (link is to .pdf file) in a dispute between two companies who had contracted to share in the duties of performing corrective laser eye surgery. The party that lost the arbitration sought vacatur on two grounds allowed in FAA jurisprudence: on the statutory ground that the arbitrator exceeded his authority, and on the non-statutory ground that the arbitrator manifestl

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While we’re on the subject of arguments one can use to try to prevent the confirmation of an arbitral award, we note that the Texas Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the Perry Homes case tomorrow. For more on the case see this article, or this one, or this one from a more mainstream source (the Dallas Morning News). The argument will supposedly be webcast, but when I tried to find specifics on the internet the Court’s website s

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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 i

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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. Resolutio

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Frequent guest commenter Rick Freeman made an important point yesterday in a comment to our post on the Apache v. Texaco case. Rick said, commenting not only on the Apache case but also on our post about Sen. West’s proposal that information about arbitrations be compiled: Instead of a statute that says the decisions will be compiled, why not one that says that, in true arms length negotiated arbitration agreements, taxpayer financed Texas

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Yesterday, the Fifth Circuit handed down an opinion confirming an arbitral award in favor of Texaco (link is to .pdf file) in a contract dispute over some off-shore oil exploration in the Bohai Bay of China. The opinion confirms the award with discussion of two important points, one which has been discussed at length in the Circuit, and one which has not.The arbitrator in this case awarded Texaco more than $71M, some $20M of which was an award of

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Today the Fifth Circuit released its en banc opinion (link is to .pdf file) in the Positive Software case (background on case here and here). The long-awaited opinion, written by Judge Jones, sets out the rule, in the Fifth Circuit, for when a court (employing the FAA) must vacate an arbitral award based on an arbitrator’s failure to disclose a possible conflict. As we wrote in a CLE paper back in May 2005, the Fifth Circuit had not, until

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On January 12, 2006, we blogged about the Fifth Circuit decision in the Positive Software case to vacate an arbitral award on the basis of an undisclosed conflict of interest. Today, the Circuit decided to rehear the case(link is to .pdf file) en banc. We will keep you posted on this and other exciting developments as they unfold. As yet, neither the new briefing schedule nor the oral argument had been set. Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, Fift

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In an opinion (link is to .pdf file) filed Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit affirmed a trial court decision to confirm an arbitral award which contained a punitive damages award for the arbitral plaintiff. The case involved a woman’s breach of fiduciary duty claims against the managers of an investment portfolio she received as part of a divorce settlement. The arbitral panel found that the investment company did in fact breach its duty to the

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