Stolt-nielsen's Comfort For The 'average Arbitrator': An Analysis Of The Post-hall Street 'manifest Disregard' Award Review Standard

摘要

For decades, federal district courts nationwide have vacated arbitration awards upon a showing that the arbitration award reflected a "manifest disregard" of the applicable law. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Hall Street Assocs. LLC v. Mattel Inc., 128 S. Ct. 1396 (2008), which many analysts view as the death knell for the manifest disregard standard of review of arbitration awards. Since Hall Street, however, a number of district and circuit courts have found life in the manifest disregard review standard. Others, indeed, have pronounced it dead. This article briefly surveys the post-Hall Street federal court cases addressing the continued viability of die manifest disregard doctrine standard of review, and criticizes the approach taken in a prominent recent case by die Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Stolt-Nielsen SA v. Animalfeeds Int'l Corp.