Many individuals and businesses prefer to resolve their disputes in arbitration rather than litigation. There are many compelling reasons for this preference. Arbitration is typically faster and cheaper than litigation, and arbitration proceedings are often private. Perhaps most importantly, arbitration typically provides greater finality than litigation. Arbitration awards are notoriously difficult to overturn, and the winning party therefore usually does not have to worry about her victory being tied up in years of appeals.

This last virtue is also one of arbitration’s greatest vices. Because awards are so hard to overturn, the losing party often has little recourse if the arbitrator’s decision is irrational, nonsensical or just plain wrong. Under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA or act)—which governs most arbitrations in interstate commerce—vacating an award is “a high hurdle,” and it is “not enough to show that the arbitrator committed an error—or even a serious error,” as in Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp., 559 U.S. 662, 671 (2010). Rather, the losing party must show the applicability of one of the specific, narrow bases for vacatur set forth in Section 10 of the act, 9 U.S.C. Section 10(a)—corruption, evident partiality of the arbitrators, refusal to hear material evidence, and so forth, as in Hall St. Association v. Mattel, 552 U.S. 576, 579 (2008).

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