• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.125-157
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• 2012

This study is to vindicate the vacation of arbitral awards in the United States. It focuses on the harmony of case law with statutory law of the United States. Until the early twentieth century, the American legal system, having adopted the English common law view, harbored a hostile attitude toward arbitration. The purpose of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) of the United States, enacted in 1925, was to eliminate the hostile attitude of courts toward arbitration. Congress is to enforce arbitration agreements into which parties have entered and to place arbitration agreements upon the same footing as other contracts. The structure of grounds for vacating arbitration awards has two layers. One is of vacating grounds with statutory origins, such as the FAA and the Uniform Arbitration Act, and the other, of vacating grounds originating from a nonstatutory, case law background. For a while, vacatur based on case law has coexisted with vacatur on statutory grounds for arbitration awards. After the Supreme Court decision in Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc., however, the justification of vacating based on case law has weakened. Post-Hall Street decisions of circuit courts show ways to deal with manifest disregard of the law. One of them is the harmonization of the case law grounds for vacating with the statutory grounds. It seems that the manifest-disregard-of-law and public-policy exceptions show a possibility of survival after Hall Street. However, other nonstatutory grounds for vacation of arbitration awards have no firm basis after Hall Street.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.109-136
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• 2014

The separability of an arbitration clause is generally recognized throughout the world, but there are no provisions of it under the Federal Arbitration Act(FAA) of the United States. As such, the controversy over the recognition of separability has developed with the rise of certain cases. The Supreme Court recognized this separability based on section 4 of the FAA in the decision of the Prima Paint case. The Court ruled that courts must decide the claim about the fraudulent inducement of an arbitration agreement itself, but they must not decide the claim about the fraudulent inducement of a contract involving a broad arbitration clause, and they have to proceed with the arbitration. The Court said that the subject of an arbitral award is set by the agreement of the parties, and thereby arbitrators can decide the issues about the fraudulent inducement of a contract on the basis of the arbitration clause when it is broad to the point of including the issues. Many courts have extended the separability beyond the fraud context to include other defenses to contract formation in the federal courts such as the occurrence of mistake, illegality, and frustration of purpose. In interpreting the parties' intention of ensuring arbitrator competence, the Supreme Court has treated differently the issues about whether the arbitration agreement exists or not and the issues about whether the preconditions for dispute resolution by a valid arbitration agreement is fulfilled or not. The Court holds that the federal policy in favor of arbitration does not apply to the former issues, and arbitrators can decide theses issues only when parties assign them clearly and unmistakably to them. However, the later issues receive a presumption in favor of arbitration; i.e., when the interpretation of a valid arbitration clause is contested, the arbitrators can decide these issues. In the First Options case, the former issue was questioned. The question of the separability of an arbitration clause is where the validity of the main contract involving the arbitration clause is contested. Therefore, the doctrine of separability did not operate in the First Options case in which the validity of the arbitration clause itself was questioned, and the decision in the First Options was irrelevant to the separability. I think that the Prima Paint case and the First Options case have different issues, and there is no tension between them.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.53-77
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• 2012

Competence-competence refers to an arbitratorpower to determine whether he or she has jurisdiction to decide a controversy. Although arbitrators power to rule on their own jurisdiction is generally recognized throughout the world, in the United States, neither the courts nor legislative bodies have recognized its significance or the reasoning behind its widespread adoption. Section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) is notorious among arbitration statues for its failure to incorporate competence-competence. When courts rule on an issue of competence-competence, it is referred to as a question of who decides the arbitrability of the case. In the United States, the use of competence-competence as a term of art is still limited to scholarly writings. The answer to the competence-competence inquiry is found in an interpretation of section 3 of the FAA which empowers the courts to decide arbitrability issues. The cases of the Supreme Court and most commentators interpreted sections 2 and 3 of the FAA as conferring issues of arbitrability on the federal courts, including the ability to rule on the validity and scope of the arbitral agreement. Traditionally, United States courts have denied the competence-competence to arbitral tribunal. Recently, however, they have confounded the rules by placing primary importance on the arbitration agreement between the parties. The Supreme Court, in a series of cases, has underscored the necessity of giving full effect to the intentions of the parties as expressed in their agreement to arbitrate. The result of the Supreme Court's emphasis on contractualism in determining the issue of arbitrability is most evident in the Courtdecision in the First Options case. Under First Options, courts are to decide arbitrability issues unless there is a clear and unmistakable contractual assignment of these issues to the tribunal itself. The Court is appraised that it has attempted to compromise between contractual freedom in the arbitration setting and the rule of law that is necessary in a society that depends on the concept of ordered liberty. In the decision in Howsam, the Court clarified the definition of arbitrability by attempting to draw a clear line between questions of arbitrability that are to be decided by courts and those matters that bear on the allocation of decisions between courts and arbitrators but are not questions of arbitrability.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.315-341
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• 2006

이 논문은 1999년에 전면 개정된 한국의 중재법과 1925년에 제정된 미국의 연방중재볍 및 2000년에 제시된 개정통일중재법의 내용 중 중재인의 권한과 의무들에 관한 규정들을 비교 분석한 것이다. 우선, 미국 중재법의 기본법이라 할 수 있는 연방중재법은 1925년에 제정된 이래 중재 이슈에 관한 발전들을 담아내지 못한 채 진부한 과거의 법률을 그대로 유지하고 있다. 따라서, 중재인의 권한과 의무에 대해서도 중재판정과 같은 기본적인 권한 규정 외에 중재인의 임시적 처분이나 민사책임의 면제, 고지 의무등 새롭게 진전된 중재 환경의 변화나 논의들이 다루어지지 않고 있다. 그러나, 미국의 통일주법위원전미협의회가 주체가 되어 제시한 2000년의 개정통일중재법은 중재이론이나 케이스의 발전들을 반영하였을 뿐만 아니라, 중재인의 권한과 의무에 대해서도 훨씬 구체적인 규정들을 담아내고 있다. 개정통일중재법은 중재언의 권한을 개정 이전보다 훨씬 강화하는 대신, 보다 엄격한 윤리적 의무를 부과함으로써 균형을 유지하려 하고 있다. 특히, 중재인의 올바른 중재판정을 이끌어 내기 위해 증거 확보에 있어 보다 강한 절차적 권한을 부여하고 있는 것이 특정이다. 아울러, 중재인으로 하여금 임시적 처분을 내릴 수 있는 권한을 부여하고 있을 뿐만 아니라, 징벌적 배상을 결정할 수 있게까지 규정하고 있다. 그러나, 중재인의 절차적 권한의 강화는 동법이 의도한 바와는 달리 중재를 재판에 유사한 구조로 만듦과 동시에, 중재의 신속성과 최종성을 해치는 결과를 초래하는 것이 아닌가 하는 우려와 지적을 낳기도 한다. 한편, 한국의 중재법은 중재인의 임시적 처분권한과 고지의무를 규정하고 있지만, 미국의 개정통일중재법과 달리 민사적 책임면제 규정을 두고 있지는 않다. 특히, 한국 중재법에서 중재인은 증거를 수집하기 위하여 당사자의 임의적 협조에 의존하지만, 미국의 개정통일중재법에서는 증거개시제도까지 채택하고, 제 3 자도 소환할 수 있는 등 중재인의 절차적 권한이 훨씬 강하므로 한국 중재법에서 중재인의 절차적 권한은 미국의 개정통일중재법에서의 그것보다는 훨씬 제한적이다. 한국의 중재를 더욱 실효성 있게 하기 위해서는 중재법에서 중재인의 절차적 권한에 관한 규정을 보완해 주어야 할 것이다. 또 성공적인 중재를 위해서는 중재인의 전문성과 함께 윤리의식이 중요하므로 상사중 재원은 별도의 중재인 윤리규정을 제정해야 할 것이다.