Arbitration & Mediation

May 2009 Florida Bar Journal Article, "Playing Games With Arbitration Awards" Discusses Phantom "Problem"

By Christopher B. Hopkins, Esq.

The Florida Bar Journal has been on top of arbitration issues in the last several years. The May 2009 Journal includes a detailed article following the U.S. Supreme Court's Hall Street Associates LLC v. Mattel decision from last year.

As quick background, Mattel holds that parties to an arbitration agreement cannot contract the basis for federal court review of the arbitration award -- parties are limited to the grounds set forth in the FAA, section 10. We briefly discussed this case, pre-SCOTUS, here. The opinion is here.

South Florida lawyers, Jon Polenberg and Quinn Smith, wrote their article, "Can Parties Play Games With Arbitration Awards? How Mattel May Put an End to Prolonged Gamesmanship" which ran in this month's Journal.

Their conclusion is solid. Mattel seems to have confirmed that court's jurisdiction under FAA section 10 is limited to those exclusive grounds for vacating an award, despite some potential flexibility through the use of the word "may."

But was it really "gamesmanship" at play when parties in a dispute either unilaterally sought to broaden a court's ability to review an award? More strikingly, what about when the parties agreed, pre-dispute, to contractually broaden court review? Was that playing games?

There had been a cluster of cases pre-Mattel expanding review. Few were from (or related to) Florida. Since Mattel, the Florida courts have not published a single Mattel-based arbitration opinion. We're left with good information from the article... but where was the gamesmanship?

Full post as published by Florida Arbitration Law on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).