Originally from Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation

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The first article in this series, “Parties, Beware: Current Practices and Judicial Standards Threaten Your Right to Truly Reasoned Awards,” 38 Alternatives 19 (February 2020) (available at http://bit.ly/39Au7Gi), warned parties that they may be surprised to receive an unreasoned arbitration award even when they specifically ask for a reasoned one.

Parties also will be disappointed that arbitration rules contain no minimum standards on what constitutes a reasoned award. If they try to overturn unreasoned awards, they are likely to be shocked to realize that courts have repeatedly confirmed unreasoned awards as reasoned.

Courts have, to put it bluntly, muffed the job of requiring comprehensible reasons in reasoned awards. Last month’s Part 1 analyzed a series of unexplained awards that courts confirmed as reasoned.