International Arbitration - Part 1, Chapter 8 - AAA Yearbook on Arbitration and the Law - 23rd Edition
About the Editors:
Stephen K. Huber is Professor Emeritus at the University of Houston Law Center, and has served as a visiting professor at the University of Texas, Rice University (Political Science), Pepperdine Law School (Dispute Resolution Program), and the University of East Africa (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania). He has degrees in law from the University of Chicago and Yale University, and a B.A. from Earlham College.
Professor Huber's teaching and scholarly interest have centered on business and commerce (Contracts), and the regulation thereof (Administrative Law, Regulation of Financial Intermediaries). Over the last decade, his writings have focused on private binding dispute resolution proceedings (Arbitration). Teaching materials include: Stephen K. Huber & Maureen A. Weston, Arbitration: Cases and Materials (3d ed. LexisNexis 2011); Wendy Trachte-Huber & Stephen K. Huber, Mediation and Negotiation: Reaching Agreement in Law and Business (2d ed. LexisNexis 2007). Mr. Huber is a member of the State Bar of Texas, and the editor of Alternative Resolutions, the quarterly journal of the Dispute Resolution Section. He is the author of numerous publications relating to arbitration.
Ben H. Sheppard, Jr. is a Distinguished Lecturer and Director of the A.A. White Dispute Resolution Center at the University of Houston Law Center. From 1969 through 2005 he practiced at Vinson & Elkins L.L.P. where he was a partner and co-chair of the firm's international dispute resolution practice. His practice focused on litigation and arbitration, both as counsel and as arbitrator. He has served in international and domestic arbitrations as sole arbitrator, tribunal chair, party-appointed arbitrator and on tripartite tribunals selected from institutional rosters.
He was chair of AAA/ICDR task force that promulgated the 2006 amendment to the ICDR International Arbitration Rules that established a pre-arbitral emergency arbitrator procedure. He was the author of the report and recommendation to the ABA House of Delegates in support of the 2004 Revision to the AAA/ABA Code of Ethics for Arbitrators in Commercial Disputes. He chaired one of the two working groups that promulgated the CPR Protocol on Disclosure of Documents and Presentation of Witnesses in Commercial Arbitration. He is a past chair of the Disputes Division of the ABA Section of International Law and for five years served as editor-in-chief of The International Arbitration News. He is co-editor, with Lawrence W. Newman, and a contributing author to Take the Witness: Cross-Examination in International Arbitration (Juris 2010).
He graduated with high honors from the University of Texas School of Law in 1968, and was law clerk to the Honorable Homer Thornberry, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1968 to 1969.
Originally from: AAA Yearbook on Arbitration and the Law - 23rd Edition
8.01 Applicability of the New York Convention
Safety Nat’l Casualty Corp. v. Certain Underwrites at Lloyd’s, London, 587 F.3d 714 (5th Cir. 2009)
1. Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“New York Convention”) superseded a Louisiana statute prohibiting arbitration agreements in insurance contracts.
2. The McCarran- Ferguson Act is inapplicable to arbitration agreements governed by the New York Convention, so that state insurance law cannot preempt the Convention.
Suit was brought in federal district court in a dispute over the assignment of rights under reinsurance agreements. Each reinsurance agreement contained an arbitration provision which eventually led to motions to both compel and quash arbitration. Safety Nat’l Casualty Corp. v. Certain Underwrites at Lloyd’s, London, 587 F.3d 714, 717 (5th Cir. 2009).
It was disputed whether a Louisiana law, LA. REV. STAT. ANN. § 22:868, voiding arbitration agreements in insurance contracts reversepreempted the obligation to recognize “an agreement in writing under which the parties undertake to submit to arbitration” found in the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the New York Convention). Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards art. II(1), June 10, 1958, 21 U.S.T. 2517, 330 U.N.T.S. 3. It was argued that the Louisiana statute reverse-preempted the Convention under the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which provides that “No Act of Congress shall be construed to invalidate, impair, or supersede any law enacted by any state for purpose of regulating the business of insurance. . . unless such Act specifically related to the business of insurance . . . .” 15 U.S.C. § 1011.
Chapter 8
International Arbitration
8.01 Applicability of the New York Convention
8.02 Enforcement of the Arbitration Agreement
8.03 Waiver of Removal Rights under the New York Convention
8.04 Court Assisted Evidence Gathering under 28 U.S.C. § 1782
8.05 Injunctions against Arbitration
8.06 Procedural Barriers against Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards
8.07 Enforcement of Foreign Awards Vacated at the Seat of Arbitration