During the more than three years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hall Street Associates v. Mattel Inc.,1 where the Court ruled that parties may not contract in their arbitration agreement to expand the scope of judicial review of arbitration awards, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the district courts in it and elsewhere have grappled with the question of whether “manifest disregard of the law” remains a viable ground for vacatur of an arbitral award. Manifest disregard, unlike the bases for vacating an arbitration award set forth in the Federal Arbitration Act, or FAA, is strictly a judicially created doctrine. In discussing the origins of manifest disregard, more than a half-century ago, the Hall Street Court mused that “[m]aybe the term ‘manifest disregard’ was meant to name a new ground for review, but maybe it merely referred to the [FAA] §10 grounds [for vacatur] collectively, rather than adding to them.”2

In Hall Street, as previously discussed in this column, the Supreme Court speculated on, but did not decide, the role manifest disregard plays in deciding motions to vacate arbitration awards. Observing that some courts have recognized manifest disregard as a separate ground for vacatur in addition to those set forth in §10 of the FAA, while others viewed it only as an umbrella term for the grounds already enumerated in §10, the Supreme Court found that §§10 and 11 of the FAA contained the exclusive grounds for vacating awards. At the same time, the Court declined to specify what scope, if any, manifest disregard retains in light of its decision.

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