• Title/Summary/Keyword: Arbitral award

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A Study on the Separability of an Arbitration Clause in United States Cases (미국 판례상 중재조항의 분리가능성에 관한 고찰)

  • Kang, Soo-Mi
    • 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.

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Admissibility of Subrogation Arbitration in the view of Firm Offer Hypothesis (확정오퍼가설 관점에서 바라 본 대위중재의 허용여부)

  • Cho, Chung-Kon
    • International Commerce and Information Review
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.287-311
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    • 2013
  • The arbitration parties may disagree with the arbitrator's award about whether they are eligible for the dispute case. While lots of disputes cases relating to subrogation are arising, it is not easy to find subrogation arbitration system to handle them clearly. The main issue is an availability of subrogation arbitration in case of the dispute which the insurer requests the arbitration against the carrier according to the arbitration clause of Bill of Lading. The direct parties of arbitration clause of the B/L are the carrier and the holder of the B/L. Could the insurer get the position of the arbitration party in stead of the holder of the B/L after compensation if there was an accident of insurance on the way of carriage? Even though there are a few arbitral awards of subrogation, the reason of the eligibility of subrogation arbitration is not enough. This paper scrutinized precedent research papers, arbitration awards, judicial precedents, and the Automobile Subrogation Arbitration System. Vague dispute resolution system which burden corporations with so many costs must be not good for business. In the view of economic efficiency, blank of contract, reciprocality, and Coase Theorem, it is recommended that subrogation arbitration system for the international trade would be better focus on the hypothesis of "Firm Offer Character of Arbitration Clause."

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Interpretation of the Umbrella Clause in Investment Treaties (국제투자조약상 포괄적 보호조항(Umbrella Clauses)의 해석에 관한 연구)

  • Jo, Hee-Moon
    • Journal of Arbitration Studies
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.95-126
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    • 2009
  • One of the controversial issues in investor-state investment arbitration is the interpretation of "umbrella clause" that is found in most BIT and FTAs. This treaty clause requires on Contracting State of treaty to observe all investment obligations entered into with foreign investors from the other Contracting State. This clause did not receive in-depth attention until SGS v. Pakistan and SGS v. Philippines cases produced starkly different conclusions on the relations about treaty-based jurisdiction and contract-based jurisdiction. More recent decisions by other arbitral tribunals continue to show different approaches in their interpretation of umbrella clauses. Following the SGS v. Philippines decision, some recent decisions understand that all contracts are covered by umbrella clause, for example, in Siemens A.G. v. Argentina, LG&E Energy Corp. v. Argentina, Sempra Energy Int'l v. Argentina and Enron Corp. V. Argentina. However, other recent decisions have found a different approach that only certain kinds of public contracts are covered by umbrella clauses, for example, in El Paso Energy Int'l Co. v. Argentina, Pan American Energy LLC v. Argentina and CMS Gas Transmission Co. v. Argentina. With relation to the exhaustion of domestic remedies, most of tribunals have the position that the contractual remedy should not affect the jurisdiction of BIT tribunal. Even some tribunals considered that there is no need to exhaust contract remedies before bringing BIT arbitration, provoking suspicion of the validity of sanctity of contract in front of treaty obligation. The decision of the Annulment Committee In CMS case in 2007 was an extraordinarily surprising one and poured oil on the debate. The Committee composed of the three respected international lawyers, Gilbert Guillaume and Nabil Elaraby, both from the ICJ, and professor James Crawford, the Rapportuer of the International Law Commission on the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, observed that the arbitral tribunal made critical errors of law, however, noting that it has limited power to review and overturn the award. The position of the Committee was a direct attack on ICSID system showing as an internal recognition of ICSID itself that the current system of investor-state arbitration is problematic. States are coming to limit the scope of umbrella clauses. For example, the 2004 U.S. Model BIT detailed definition of the type of contracts for which breach of contract claims may be submitted to arbitration, to increase certainty and predictability. Latin American countries, in particular, Argentina, are feeling collectively victims of these pro-investor interpretations of the ICSID tribunals. In fact, BIT between developed and developing countries are negotiated to protect foreign investment from developing countries. This general characteristic of BIT reflects naturally on the provisions making them extremely protective for foreign investors. Naturally, developing countries seek to interpret restrictively BIT provisions, whereas developed countries try to interpret more expansively. As most of cases arising out of alleged violation of BIT are administered in the ICSID, a forum under the auspices of the World Bank, these Latin American countries have been raising the legitimacy deficit of the ICSID. The Argentine cases have been provoking many legal issues of international law, predicting crisis almost coming in actual investor-state arbitration system. Some Latin American countries, such as Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, already showed their dissatisfaction with the ICSID system considering withdrawing from it to minimize the eventual investor-state dispute. Thus the disagreement over umbrella clauses in their interpretation is becoming interpreted as an historical reflection on the continued tension between developing and developed countries on foreign investment. There is an academic and political discussion on the possible return of the Calvo Doctrine in Latin America. The paper will comment on these problems related to the interpretation of umbrella clause. The paper analyses ICSID cases involving principally Latin American countries to identify the critical legal issues arising between developing and developed countries. And the paper discusses alternatives in improving actual investor-State investment arbitration; inter alia, the introduction of an appellate system and treaty interpretation rules.

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