Recent decision highlights importance of arbitrators’ full disclosure of all potential conflicts
By natalie • Jul 29th, 2010 • Category: Arbitration, Arbitration Cases, Arbitration News, International ArbitrationDo arbitrators exhibit “evident partiality,” providing grounds to vacate an arbitration award, by failing to disclose that they are serving as arbitrators in a simultaneous but separate arbitration, where the two arbitrations involve tangentially related parties, share similar issues and include a common material witness? On February 23, 2010, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Scheindlin, J.) vacated an award on these grounds in Scandinavian Reins. Co. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., No. 09 Civ. 9531 (S.D.N.Y. 2010), holding that the arbitrators’ participation in the second arbitration was, in the particular circumstances of the case, a material conflict of interest that should have been disclosed, notwithstanding the arbitrators’ good faith belief that they would not be influenced by any information learned during the other arbitration.
