USA Law and Practice Contributed by: Courtney Scobie, Jack Edwards and Andrea Whitley, Ajamie LLP
13.4 Procedure for Enforcing Domestic and Foreign Arbitration Enforcing domestic and foreign arbitration awards involves the following specific proce- dures. • Request for confirmation – the prevailing party must first confirm the award court. This involves filing a petition to confirm the award, along with a copy of the arbitration agree- ment and the award itself. • Court confirmation – if the court is satisfied that the arbitration award meets the legal requirements and is not subject to challenge, it will confirm the award and issue a judg- ment in favour of the prevailing party. This judgment can then be enforced like any other court judgment. • Enforcement – once the court judgment confirming the arbitration award is obtained, the prevailing party can take legal action to enforce the judgment, such as seeking to collect monetary damages or obtain specific performance. 14. Outlook 14.1 Proposals for Dispute Resolution Reform There are no specific proposals for comprehen- sive dispute resolution reform in the USA. 14.2 Growth Areas The US Supreme Court’s June 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, 445 S Ct 2244 (2024) (“Loper Bright”) has the potential to dramatically impact the US federal court sys- tem, including commercial disputes. In Loper
Bright, the US Supreme Court overturned its own long-standing principle known as “Chev- ron deference” – ie, where courts would defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of a statute or regulation when that statute or regulation was silent or ambiguous. The court concluded that this principle violated the Admin- istrative Procedure Act, which sets up the proce- dures for federal agency action, and that courts should resolve such matters without deferring to the agency. The Loper Bright decision could send many decisions that used to be made by federal agencies to the federal courts. The Loper Bright ruling directly affects actions by administrative agencies but will also affect commercial disputes between private parties. Many federal statutes and regulations, such as securities and antitrust regulations, environ- mental statutes and regulations, and Depart- ment of Labor regulations concerning employ- ment agreements, wage-and-hour laws, and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), are at the heart of many commercial disputes. If litigants claim a statute or regulation is ambiguous, this could increase the complexity of that case and dramatically increase the work- load of the federal court system, which is already overburdened and understaffed. An increase in this workload could cause delays in other mat- ters. Given that Loper Bright is only a few months old, its full impact is unknown. It has, however, been cited in more than 100 federal court cases. Also, several courts have halted the implementation of new proposed federal regulations, including new rules on overtime pay and non-compete agreements.
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