CCA Fellow Dana Welch provides a practical guide to challenging an arbitration award, a process with narrow legal grounds and low odds of success. She examines when vacatur may be warranted under the Federal Arbitration Act or California Arbitration Act, including fraud, arbitrator bias, procedural misconduct, exceeding arbitral authority, and manifest disregard of the law. Welch also underscores the importance of determining which law governs and acting quickly, since the deadline to …
Articles by Fellows
Arbitration: A True Litigation Alternative
Can arbitration offer a better path to resolving a business dispute even when the parties’ contract contains no arbitration clause? In “Arbitration: A True Litigation Alternative,” CCA Fellow Roy L. De Barbieri and co-author Robert Harris examine an often-overlooked option: agreeing to arbitrate after a dispute arises, including when litigation is already underway. Published in the July/August 2026 issue of CT Lawyer, the article explores why post-dispute arbitration remains uncommon. The …
A Possible Change to the Value of Arbitral Injunctions
CCA Fellow Theo Cheng examines how the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc. may affect the perceived value of injunctive relief in arbitration. Although arbitral tribunals can issue effective interim and emergency relief, their authority generally extends only to the parties before them—a limitation traditionally viewed as a disadvantage compared with federal courts. By restricting federal courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions benefiting nonparties, CASA narrows that …
Mock Exercises for Commercial Arbitrations
I have previously written about the value of mock exercises for lawyers preparing for trials or appellate arguments (see “What Mock Exercises Reveal that Briefs Cannot” New York Law Journal April 2, 2026*). The point I made is that mock exercises are invaluable because they provide the lawyers with the opportunity to test their arguments before an experienced former judge or experienced litigator. The mock judge asks tough questions and forces the attorneys to focus on the strengths …
Why In-House Counsel Must Drive the Arbitrator Selection Call
Your team spent weeks—maybe months—negotiating an important transaction. Someone, possibly not the deal lawyers, chose arbitration over the courts as a last-minute clause before signing. Now a dispute has arisen, arbitration is looming, it may last more than a year at significant cost, and you must select an arbitrator. Outside counsel will present candidates, and your instinct may be to defer to them—but don’t. Selecting an arbitrator isn’t a legal formality. It’s the equivalent of hiring …
The Silicon Arbiter: AI-Generated Arbitration Awards and the Federal Arbitration Act – Part II
The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) systems has made urgent a question that would have seemed absurd to the drafters of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA): whether algorithms might generate binding arbitral awards without human involvement. This two-part article concludes that, under the FAA as currently written, such awards cannot be enforced. Yet this article does not end with a negative prognosis for AI’s place in arbitration. Instead, it makes suggestions for legislative reform …
What Arbitrators Actually Think About Your Expert
Republished with permission from JAMS. What is and is not effective expert testimony Unlike a jury, an arbitrator is rarely seeing anything for the first time. That changes everything. Experienced arbitrators have heard hundreds of experts — they recognize the theater, they spot the evasions, and they dislike witnesses who sacrifice credibility for advocacy. The qualities that make an expert effective before an arbitrator are not always the same qualities that resonate with a jury. Over …
The Venezuela Dispute Resolution Conundrum
In “The Venezuela Dispute Resolution Conundrum,” Marc J. Goldstein examines the complex legal and political risks facing energy and mining companies considering new investments in Venezuela. He focuses on OFAC’s June 2026 General Licenses, which require contracts to be governed by the laws of a U.S. jurisdiction and related dispute resolution proceedings to occur in the United States, United Kingdom, France, or Singapore. The commentary explores how political instability, future governmental …
Feliu Case Summaries, June 2026
Prepared by Alfred Feliu, a Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, the Feliu Case Summaries (June 2026) provide a practical snapshot of notable, recent decisions shaping arbitration and ADR across U.S. federal and state courts. Organized by topic, the digest highlights key developments affecting arbitration agreements, threshold jurisdictional disputes, delegation and waiver arguments, unconscionability challenges, class and representative action issues, hearing and evidentiary …
Venezuela Six Months Later: An Update for the Arbitration Community
In “Venezuela Six Months Later: An Update for the Arbitration Community,” the author examines how Venezuela’s evolving political and economic landscape could affect international arbitration, foreign investment, and the country’s efforts to rebuild its energy sector. The commentary explores the positions of major oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Repsol, while considering the continuing significance of unpaid arbitral awards and judgments arising from earlier …
