A collection of the most recent U.S. international arbitration decisions is available here. Decisions can be quickly retrieved by using the filter tools below.
-
Vanwechel v. Regions Bank, No. 8:17-CV-00738-SDM-AAS (M.D. Fla. May 3, 2017)05/03/2017
Court granted motions to compel arbitration and stayed the action pending arbitral decision. Court held that sufficient consideration supported the arbitration agreement; the claim fell under the arbitral agreement; the agreement was not unconscionable; the plaintiffs could not invoke the alternative jurisdiction provision; and the defendants did not waive the right to compel arbitration by removing the action. Additionally, equitable estoppel required arbitration of the claims even where a party was a non-signatory to the agreement.
-
Theo’s Pizza v. Integrity Brands, LLC, No. 3:17-CV-0039-MBS (D.S.C. May 3, 2017)05/03/2017
Court denied motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and to compel arbitration, finding that, where the parties had not explicitly agreed to arbitrate, no such agreement could be imputed.
-
Armenta v. Go-Staff, Inc., Rogers v. Nelson, No. 3:16-CV-02548-JLS-AGS (S.D. Cal. May 3, 2017)05/03/2017
Court granted motion to compel arbitration, finding that the question whether the mandatory class action waiver is enforceable is to be determined by the arbitrator.
-
Rogers v. Nelson, No. 3:16-CV-00955-L-RBB (S.D. Cal. May 3, 2017)05/03/2017
Court granted motion to compel arbitration, finding that an arbitration clause in “boilerplate” language is enforceable and that the arbitration clause was neither procedurally nor substantively unconscionable.
-
Choice Hotels International, Inc. v. Shive, LLC, No. 8:16-CV-03560-PX (D. Md. May 3, 2017)05/03/2017
Court granted motion for default judgment on action to confirm an arbitration award, finding that review of an arbitration award is “severely circumscribed.”
-
Pataky v. The Brigantine, Inc., No. 3:17-CV-00352-GPC-AGS (S.D. Cal. May 3, 2017)05/03/2017
Court denied motion to compel arbitration and request for stay, finding that, although an arbitration agreement existed, the class action waiver was inconstant with statutory rights under the National Labor Relations Act and therefore unenforceable under ninth circuit precedent.
-
Hamilton-Warwick v. Verizon Wireless, No. 0:16-CV-03461-JRT-BRT (D. Minn. May 3, 2017)05/03/2017
Court granted motion to compel arbitration and stay the action, adopting the magistrate judge’s report and recommendations finding that a valid arbitration existed, the dispute fell within its scope, and the arbitration agreement did not become void due to a breach of the contract which contained it.
-
Donner v. GFI Capital Resources Group, No. 1:16-CV-09581 (S.D.N.Y. May 2, 2017)05/02/2017
Court granted defendants’ motion to compel arbitration and plaintiff’s request for a stay, finding that broad arbitration clause in employment agreement encompassed plaintiff’s claims. Court further found that a non-signatory to the agreement could join in compelling arbitration given the close nexus between him and the employment agreement, and because the claims brought against him and the signatory were closely intertwined.
-
Graham v. Chubb Insurance Company, No. 1:17-CV-01793 (E.D. Ill. May 2, 2017)05/02/2017
Court denied motion to compel arbitration, finding that the arbitration clause was permissive, and not mandatory.
-
Ortega v. Uber Technologies Inc., No. 1:15-CV-07387-NGG-JO (E.D.N.Y. May 2, 2017)05/02/2017
Court denied motion for reconsideration or clarification of its prior order granting motion to compel arbitration, finding that question of whether arbitration agreement covers disputes that arose prior to its conclusion is a question of arbitrability that was delegated to the arbitrators.
-
Inversiones y Procesadora Tropical Inprotsa v. Del Monte International GMBH, No. 1:16-CV-24275-FAM (S.D. Fla. May 2, 2017)05/02/2017
Court granted cross-petition to confirm arbitral award, finding, inter alia, that (1) the New York Convention and FAA provided federal subject matter jurisdiction over the underlying action to vacate the arbitral award and thus the cross-petition to confirm; (2) the argument that the underlying contract had been obtained by fraud had already been addressed and rejected on the facts during the arbitration and could not be “rehashed” in the guise of a public policy argument; and (3) petitioner’s failure to effect service of petition to vacate award within the statutory time limit had the effect of barring it from asserting the award’s invalidity as an affirmative defense to the cross-petition for confirmation of the arbitral award.
-
Trustees for the Mason Tenders District Council Welfare Fund v. Briscoe Sunrise Corporation, No. 1:16-CV-07680 (S.D.N.Y. May 2, 2017)05/02/2017
Court granted motion for summary judgment to confirm arbitration award, finding that the arbitrator construed and applied the applicable agreement and the undisputed facts supported confirmation.
-
Gemini Insurance Company v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s London Subscribing to Policy No. B0973MA1305152 Issued Through the Offices of Osprey Underwriting Agency Ltd., No. 4:17-CV-01044 (S.D. Tex. May 2, 2017)05/02/2017
Court granted motion to dismiss in favor of arbitration in a one-paragraph order referencing the reasoning in its April 13, 2017 order dissolving a state court’s temporary restraining order barring defendants from pursuing arbitration in England (covered separately on the Shearman & Sterling US International Arbitration Digest).
-
Horton v. FedChoice Federal Credit Union, No. 16-3960 (3d Cir. May 2, 2017)05/02/2017
Court of appeal affirmed denial of motion to dismiss or stay in favor of arbitration, finding that the district court did not err in determining that the complaint and incorporated documents are not clear on their face as to an agreement to arbitrate, and thus that the non-movant is entitled to conduct limited discovery on the narrow issue concerning the validity of the arbitration agreement.
-
International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 18 v. Ohio Contractors Association, No. 16-4040 (6th Cir. May 2, 2017)05/02/2017
Court of appeal affirmed grant of summary judgment on action to compel arbitration, finding that the arbitration clause delegated questions of arbitrability to the arbitrator.
-
Perez v. Directv Group Holdings, LLC., No. 8:16-CV-01440-JLS-DFM (C.D. Cal. May 1, 2017)05/01/2017
Court denied motion to compel arbitration, holding that the parties had not entered into a valid agreement to arbitrate, and in any event, the circumstances demonstrated procedural and substantive unconscionability. Court found that defendant withheld the arbitration clause in a separate document from the consumer-plaintiff at the time the contract was signed, and thus the clause had not been incorporated into the contract and the procedure was unconscionable. Court found that the exemption of some of defendant’s claims from arbitration was one-sided and lacking in mutuality.
-
O’Sullivan v. Sunil Gupta, M.D., LLC, No. 2:17-CV-00609-LMA-JVL (E.D. La. May 1, 2017)05/01/2017
Court granted motion to dismiss and compel arbitration as to certain claims, finding that (i) the existence of additional claims carved out from the arbitration clause did not justify refusal to compel arbitration of claims that were not carved out, and (ii) a forum selection clause did not conflict with the arbitration clause.
-
Heritage Capital Corporation v. Christie’s, Inc., No. 3:16-CV-03404-D (N.D. Tex. May 1, 2017)05/01/2017
Court granted motion to dismiss and compel arbitration, finding that the plaintiff was bound to arbitrate under a theory of equitable estoppel and that broad language of the arbitration agreement covered statutory claims.
-
Daisley v. Blizzard Music Ltd., No. 2:17-CV-01500-CAS-AS (C.D. Cal. May 1, 2017)05/01/2017
Court granted motion to dismiss in favor of arbitration, finding that a party who invoked contractual rights against a non-party was bound to arbitrate its claims under the terms of the contract, and that the non-party was an alter ego of a party to the contract.
-
Gold v. Maurer, No. 1:17-CV-00734-CKK (D.D.C. May 1, 2017)05/01/2017
Court denied motion for a temporary restraining order and injunction in aid of arbitration, finding that none of the preliminary injunction factors weighed in favor of granting the motion.
-
Meierhenry Sargeant LLP v. Williams, No. 4:16-CV-04180-LLP (D.S.D. May 1, 2017)05/01/2017
Court granted motion to stay action and compel arbitration, finding that a party’s repudiation of the underlying contract did not prevent the arbitration clause from applying to claims arising from the repudiation.
-
Crystallex International Corp. v. Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., No. 1:15-CV-01082-LPS (D. Del. May 1, 2017)05/01/2017
Court granted motion to dismiss claims against defendant Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) (“Venezuela's state-owned oil company and, undisputedly, an "agency or instrumentality" of Venezuela”) under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Court held that the claimant failed to establish the “commercial activities” exception to the FSIA because the alleged conduct by PDVSA was extraterritorial or insubstantially connected to the US, and the conduct had no direct effect in the US given that the arbitration at issue did not relate to the US and the award had not yet been issued, much less confirmed, in the US when the conduct took place. PDVSA was therefore dismissed as a party to the suit.
-
Wilson-Davis & Co., Inc. v. Mirgliotta, No. 1:16-CV-03056-PAG (N.D. Ohio Apr. 28, 2017)04/28/2017
Court granted motion for preliminary injunction and declaratory judgment enjoining ongoing arbitration proceedings in part, finding that claims arising out of losses suffered while the defendants were clients of the plaintiff were arbitrable, but losses suffered before the client relationship was formed were not subject to arbitration.
-
MacDonald v. Cashcall, Inc., No. 2:16-CV-02781-MCA-LDW (D.N.J. Apr. 28, 2017)04/28/2017
Court denied motion to compel arbitration, finding that the contract’s wholesale waiver of the application of federal and state law made it invalid, and that arbitration to which no law applies is a sham dispute settlement procedure.
-
Finn v. Estate of Gennaro R. Schiavo, No. 1:15-CV-02409-NLH-KMW (D.N.J. Apr. 28, 2017)04/28/2017
Court granted motion to enjoin arbitration, finding that movant had not submitted to arbitration and was not bound under theories of judicial estoppel or equitable estoppel.
-
Chesapeake Appalachia, L.L.C. v. Scout Petroleum , LLC, No. 4:14-CV-00620-MWB (M.D. Pa. Apr. 28, 2017)04/28/2017
Court granted motion for summary judgment on action for declaration that the contracts at issue do not permit class arbitration, finding that where the arbitration clause is silent as to class arbitration, class arbitration is excluded.
-
Quiles v. Union Pacific Railroad Company Incorporated, No. 8:16-CV-00330-JFB-SMB (D. Neb. Apr. 28, 2017)04/28/2017
Court denied motion to stay and compel arbitration, finding that no agreement to arbitrate was formed since the plaintiff was never provided a copy of the arbitration agreement, and, if an agreement was formed under such circumstances, it would be procedurally unconscionable.
-
International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 465 v. ABM Government Services, LLC, No. 5:16-CV-0029-BO (E.D.N.C., Apr. 28, 2017)04/28/2017
Court granted motion to confirm and enforce arbitration award, finding that no significant ambiguity existed to justify remanding the award to the arbitrator for clarification, and that additional challenges to confirmation of the award relied on arguments that could have been, but were not, raised in the arbitration.
-
Gibbs v. Cappo Management VII, Inc., No. 2:16-CV-00073-BO (E.D.N.C. Apr. 28, 2017)04/28/2017
Court granted motion to dismiss in favor of arbitration, finding that an arbitration provision in an employment contract signed a month after employment began did not give rise to procedural or substantive unconscionability.
-
Hilton v. Midland Funding, LLC, No. 16-1557 (6th Cir. Apr. 28, 2017)04/28/2017
Court of appeal affirmed the district court’s dismissal and vacated the district court’s judgment that defendants did not waive their right to arbitrate. Court held that because neither party requested a stay, the district court did not err by dismissing the case without prejudice. Court also held that the district court should not have ruled on the issue of waiver because the arbitration provision delegated this question to the arbitrator.
-
National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 189 Labor Committee, No. 16-7004 (D.C. Cir. Apr. 28, 2017)04/28/2017
Court affirmed the vacatur of the arbitrator’s award, finding that collective bargaining agreements may not regulate an Inspector General’s investigatory authority and that federal courts may refuse to enforce contracts that violate law or public policy. Dissent characterized the decision as being based on a “judicially fashioned ‘public policy’ exception,” warning that this “contradicts decades of precedent delineating a narrow public policy exception and threatens…to destabilize many, if not most arbitral awards.” Dissent further noted that the impact “may reach beyond labor arbitration to commercial arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act.”
-
Conde v. Open Door Marketing, LLC, No. 4:15-CV-04080-KAW (N.D. Cal. Apr. 27, 2017)04/27/2017
Court granted in part motion to deny class certification, finding that the fact that some individuals signed an arbitration agreement prevented certification as to those individuals, but also granted in part motion to expand the scope of the collective action to include a group with some individuals who signed an arbitration agreement, finding that conditional certification was a more lenient standard than eventual class certification.
-
Marciano v. DCH Auto Group, No. 7:11-CV-09635-KMK (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 27, 2017)04/27/2017
Court granted motion to confirm arbitral award and denied motion to vacate, finding, inter alia, that the arbitrator had not shown manifest partiality, any ex parte communications were non-prejudicial, the arbitrator was justified in excluding evidence submitted out of time, and there was no manifest disregard of the law.
-
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Gigi Jordan and the Hawk Mountain LLC, No. 1:17-CV-00199-RGA (D. Del. Apr. 27, 2017)04/27/2017
Court denied requests for preliminary injunctions to enjoin ongoing arbitration, finding that question of whether the dispute was arbitrable under FINRA rules was to be determined in FINRA arbitration and that there had been no waiver by conduct of the arbitration agreement.
-
Kabba v. Rent-A-Center, No. 8:17-CV-00211-PWG (D. Md. Apr. 27, 2017)04/27/2017
Court denied motion to dismiss and compel arbitration, treating it as a motion for summary judgment and finding that there was a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether the parties’ failure to include an arbitration provision in a renewed employment contract constituted repudiation of the arbitration provisions applicable to prior periods of employment.
-
Thomas v. Fiserv Solutions, No. 4:16-CV-02157-CEJ (E.D. Mo. Apr. 26, 2017)04/26/2017
Court granted defendant’s unopposed motion to dismiss and compel arbitration. Court held that the parties had entered into a valid arbitration agreement and that the dispute fell within the scope of the arbitration clause.
-
Guidotti v. Global Client Solutions, LLC, No. 1:11-CV-01219-JBS-KMW (D.N.J. Apr. 26, 2017)04/26/2017
Court denied motion in limine, finding that question of whether a party agreed to arbitrate was a factual question to be submitted to the jury, and not a legal one for the Court.
-
Ibrahim v. ABM Government Services, LLC, No. 4:16-CV-00102-JHM-HBB (W.D. Ky. Apr. 26, 2017)04/26/2017
Court granted motion to compel arbitration, finding that the arbitration agreement covered claims arising before it was concluded.
-
Edmondson v. Lilliston Ford, Inc., No. 1:13-CV-07704-RMB-JS (D.N.J. Apr. 26, 2017)04/26/2017
Court denied plaintiff’s motion to vacate the arbitration award and granted defendant’s cross-motion to confirm the arbitration award. Court found that that plaintiff had jumped to the unfounded conclusion that the arbitrator was engaging in ex parte communications. Court also rejected plaintiff’s arguments that defendant’s initial failure to pay the requisite fees to the AAA rendered the arbitration agreement unenforceable under FAA § 4.
-
Stuart v. Camp Korey, No. 2:16-CV-01815-RSM (W.D. Wash. Apr. 26, 2017)04/26/2017
Court denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment, plaintiff’s motion to strike, and plaintiff’s cross motion for summary judgment. Court found that the record did not support a finding that the non-signatory plaintiff personally received a benefit from the agreement, and thus equitable estoppel did not require plaintiff to arbitrate his claims. Court also found that the instant situation was not similar to an employer binding its employees to arbitrate or a subsidiary binding its parent company to arbitration, so agency law did not require plaintiff to arbitrate his claims either.
-
Xu v. China Sunergy (US) Clean Tech Inc., No. 5:15-CV-04823-HRL (N.D. Cal. Apr. 26, 2017)04/26/2017
Court granted plaintiff’s motion to confirm the arbitration award. Court rejected defendant’s argument that it should not be subject to the award because it neither signed an arbitration agreement nor consented to arbitration, finding that the parties intended to delegate the issue of arbitrability to the arbitrator and the arbitrator properly considered the question of whether these non-signatories were the alter-egos of signatories. Court also rejected defendant’s argument that the arbitrator manifestly disregarded the parties’ agreement and the relevant law, as the arbitrator made his decision after considering respondents’ shared directors and officers and shared decision-making structures.
-
Celltrane Communications Limited v. Acacia Research Corporation, Nos. 16-2006, 16-2326 (2d Cir. Apr. 25, 2017)
04/25/2017Court of appeal vacated and remanded part of the lower court’s judgment, finding that the lower court erred in dismissing instead of staying the case when it granted defendant’s motion to compel arbitration. Court noted that when “all claims are referred to arbitration and a stay is requested,” the FAA requires a stay of proceedings. Court therefore vacated the lower court’s dismissal and instructed it to enter an order staying the proceedings.
-
Glover v. Comenity Capital Bank, No. 3:16-CV-01785-BEN-BLM (S.D. Cal. Apr. 25, 2017)04/25/2017
Court denied motion to compel arbitration, finding that a preliminary factual question existed as to whether the arbitration agreement was concluded by an imposter, and that this question would be determined at trial.
-
Meridian Imaging Solutions, Inc. v. Omni Business Solutions, LLC No. 1:17-CV-00186-TSE-JFA (E.D. Va. Apr. 25, 2017)04/25/2017
Court granted in part and denied in part defendant’s motion to compel arbitration and stay proceedings. Court found that although defendant was a non-signatory to the arbitration agreement, he could nevertheless compel arbitration against signatory Meridian because Meridian’s claims were based on his conduct as an agent of another signatory. Court also found that neither agency nor estoppel principles supported the enforcement of the arbitration provision against another non-signatory, but that it was appropriate to stay the proceedings between the non-signatories because the issues were so closely intertwined with those being decided in the arbitration.
-
Integr8 Fuels Inc. v. Daelim Corp., No. 1:17-CV-02191-LTS (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 25, 2017)04/25/2017
Court denied plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order enjoining defendant from pursuing arbitration. Court found that plaintiff did not demonstrate a likelihood of success, or even sufficiently serious questions going to the merits, on its claim that it is not a party to an agreement to arbitrate. Court also found that the arbitration clause was broad and the claims are at least “incidental to” the contract, thus falling within the scope of the arbitration clause.
-
B&B Jewelry, Inc. v. Pandora Jewelry LLC, No. 1:17-CV-20198-UU (S.D. Fla. Mar. 23, 2017)04/23/2017
Court granted plaintiff’s motion to remand, holding that defendants failed to meet their burden in proving the existence of a valid agreement in writing within the meaning of the New York Convention.
-
Pope v. Integrated Associates of Denver, Inc., No. 1:16-CV-02588-JLK (D. Colo. Apr. 21, 2017)04/21/2017
Court granted defendant’s motion to compel arbitration for all but one of plaintiff’s claims. Court reasoned that plaintiff’s claim under Colorado Wage Claim Act was statutorily guaranteed a right to trial, and Court further refused to stay proceedings of this claim pending arbitration of other claims.
-
Sunvison v. Rentokil North America, Inc., No. 3:16-CV-02151-PK (D. Or. April 21, 2017)04/21/2017
Court recommended granting motion to compel arbitration, holding that the arbitration agreement was enforceable and plaintiff had not demonstrated procedural unfairness. Court found that the arbitration clause described the rights waived, was contained in a single-document employment agreement, and that the “take-it-or-leave-it” nature of the contract was insufficient to render it unenforceable for procedural unconscionability, where plaintiff had not shown he was surprised, misled, or deprived of adequate time to read the contract.
-
Ormonde v. Allied International Credit Corporation, No. 4:16-CV-01763-HEA (E.D. Mo. Apr. 21, 2017)04/21/2017
Court granted defendant’s motion to compel arbitration. Court found that although defendant was a non-signatory, it was able to invoke the arbitration agreement between plaintiff and eBay as an agent of eBay.
-
Bonner v. Michigan Logistics Incorporated, No. 2:16-CV-03662- GMS (D. Ariz. Apr. 20, 2017)04/20/2017
Court granted motion to compel arbitration in part, finding that ADR provision survived the termination of the agreement, that non-signatories could invoke the arbitration/ADR provisions as a matter of estoppel, and that concerted action waiver provision was severable and therefore did not prevent enforcement of the arbitration/ADR agreements even if the concerted action waiver provision was unenforceable.