USA Law and Practice Contributed by: Matthew H. Kirtland, Timothy Tyler, Katie Connolly and Taylor LeMay, Norton Rose Fulbright
original claim is extinguished and a new claim, called a judgment debt, arises.
• where the arbitrators have awarded upon a mat - ter not submitted to them, unless it is a matter not affecting the merits of the decision upon the matter submitted; and • where the award is imperfect in matter of form not affecting the merits of the controversy. Such an application may be brought either in the district where the award was made or in any district proper under the general venue statute. If a court vacates an arbitration award, and the arbi - tration agreement is still valid, the court may direct rehearing by the arbitrators. 11.2 Excluding/Expanding the Scope of Appeal Parties cannot expand the scope of judicial review or challenge under the FAA. 11.3 Standard of Judicial Review Under the FAA, courts in the United States do not review the merits of a case. This applies to internation - al arbitrations seated inside the United States and to foreign awards for which enforcement is sought under the New York or Panama Conventions, or the ICSID Convention. Review is only for the reasons stated in 11.1 Grounds for Appeal and 12.3 Approach of the Courts . The US is a party to the 1958 New York Convention with two reservations. First, the reciprocity reserva - tion means that the US only applies the Convention to recognise and enforce awards made in the terri - tory of another state party to the Convention. Second, the commercial reservation means that the US only applies the Convention to “differences arising out of legal relationships” that are considered commercial under US domestic law. The US is also a party to the Inter-American Conven - tion on Commercial Arbitration (the “Panama Conven - tion”) and the Convention on the Settlement of Invest - ment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other 12. Enforcement of an Award 12.1 New York Convention
11. Review of an Award 11.1 Grounds for Appeal
The FAA does not entitle parties to appeal arbitra - tion awards. Under the FAA, there are very limited circumstances in which a party may apply to have an award vacated, modified and/or corrected. A court may vacate an award: • where the award was procured by corruption, fraud or undue means; • where there was arbitrator evident partiality or cor - ruption; • where the arbitrators were guilty of misconduct in refusing to postpone the hearing or in refusing to hear evidence pertinent and material to the contro - versy, or of any other misbehaviour by which the rights of any party have been prejudiced; or • where the arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final and definite award upon the subject matter submitted was not made. These statutory grounds for vacatur/set aside can - not be varied by party agreement. As a matter of the common law within some court of appeals circuits of the United States, vacatur is available on the non- statutory ground of “manifest disregard of the law”. Other circuit courts of appeals have held that mani - fest disregard of the law is shorthand for the reasons for vacatur in the FAA. An applicant for vacatur must establish both that (i) the arbitrators knew of a govern - ing legal principle yet refused to apply it or ignored it altogether, and (ii) the law ignored by the arbitrators was well defined, explicit and clearly applicable to the case. A court may court may modify or correct an award: • where there was an evident material miscalcula - tion of figures or an evident material mistake in the description of any person, thing or property referred to in the award;
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