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Supremes Will Not Hear Manifest Disregard Cases

By Mark H. Astarita, Esq.

The United States Supreme Court declined to hear the appeals of three cases, all of which involve the concept of manifest disregard of the law as a grounds for vacating an arbitration award. Manifest disregard of the law has evolved over the years as an alternative justification for vacating an arbitration award. However, the concept is not contained in the arbitration statutes of the various states, nor is it in the Federal Arbitration Act. Rather it was judicially created, to address the situation where an arbitration panel is aware of a controlling legal principle, but refuses to apply it. While such an event is rare, it does happen from time to time, and the courts have vacated awards when it is clear that that the arbitrators were aware of the law, that the law controlled the issue before the panel, and the panel simply refused to apply the law...continue to full post

Full post as published by SECLaw.com on October 06, 2009 (boomark / email).