Charles F. Forer, Charles F. Forer Alternative Resolution Services

ADR

Editor's note: This article describes a hypothetical situation.

Bob has a headache. Two headaches. He had written an airtight arbitration provision to allow his client Longboat LLC to take advantage of arbitration and to go to court and seek interim relief to preserve the status quo. But Bob's careful drafting did not do the trick. The other side got "interim injunctive relief" (or whatever you call it in arbitration) from the arbitrator. And when Bob opposed confirmation of the award, the court said the arbitrator had the authority to enter the relief.

Let's go back to the contract-drafting stage. Longboat LLC was entering into a distribution agreement with a big company (BC). BC's lawyer wanted to insert an arbitration provision into the contract. Bob's inclination: distrust anything BC or its lawyer wanted. But not when it came to arbitration, so long as Longboat LLC could get interim injunctive relief from a court. Bob did not want to leave that to an arbitrator.