International Arbitration in New York and Miami

On March 4, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court decided BG Group v. Argentina, possibly the most important Supreme Court case to specifically address international arbitration. That decision may effectively make the United States the world’s most friendly international arbitration jurisdiction. Simply put, the court ruled that when a party attempts to enforce an international arbitration award and the losing party attempts to defend against enforcement by arguing that certain preconditions to the arbitration agreement were not met, a court should give deference to the arbitrator’s decision and not conduct a de novo review.

To the extent that parties enter into international arbitration agreements because they prefer to keep the courts away from deciding these types of gateway issues regarding arbitrability, the Supreme Court’s decision is welcome news. Indeed, even in some of the most international arbitration friendly nations in the world, such as France, where courts are prohibited from interfering with ongoing international arbitration proceedings, at the enforcement stage, courts are permitted to review gateway issues regarding arbitrability de novo and do not afford any deference to the decisions made by the arbitral panel.