Agreement has been reached on the long-awaited Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is a free trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim nations, including Australia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States, which represent around 40% of global GDP and one third of world trade. The text of the TPP is still being finalised by the TPP States and is not yet available. Reports indicate that the TPP includes an Investment Chapter with a…
In an April 2015 decision, In re Application of Grupo Unidos por el Canal S.A., a California district court held…
In Miminco, LLC v. Democratic Republic of the Congo, No. 14-01987 (D.D.C. Feb. 9, 2015), a U.S. district court…
In Lopez v. Kmart Corporation, No. 15-cv-01089 (N.D. Cal. May 4, 2015), a federal court in California ruled that a minor’s pre-employment arbitration agreement was valid under California law, but upheld the minor’s right to disaffirm the arbitration agreement by commencing a lawsuit after reaching majority. Within one month after his eighteenth birthday, Plaintiff brought a putative class action in California state court complaining that Kmart Corporation, where Plaintiff had been employed since he was sixteen,…
In PoolRe Ins. Corp. v. Organizational Strategies, Inc., No. 14-20433 (5th Cir. Apr. 7, 2015), the U.S. Court…
In an April 2015 decision, Asignacion v. Rickmers Genoa Schiffahrtsgesellschaft MBH & CIE KG, 783 F.3d 1010 (5th…
In Ogden Power Development – Cayman, Inc. v. PMR Limited Co., No. 14-CV-8169 (S.D.N.Y. May 21, 2015), a federal court in New York dismissed a motion to compel arbitration with prejudice as to a signatory not bound by the arbitration clause, ruling that dismissal without prejudice would have deprived the signatory of the right to have the court hear issues of arbitrability. Petitioners, Ogden Power Development – Cayman, Inc., Quezon Generating Co., Ltd., and GPI Quezon, Ltd,…
In First State Ins. Co. v. National Casualty Co., No. 14-1644 (1st Cir. Mar. 20, 2015), the First…
Parties who want to opt for institutional arbitration (instead of ad-hoc arbitration) can choose amongst a long list…
In a recent decision, In re Grupo Unidos Por El Canal, S.A., No. 14-mc-00226 (D. Col. Apr. 17, 2015), a magistrate judge in Colorado district court held that Section 1782 may not be used in aid of private international arbitration. The controversy underlying this proceeding is the project for the expansion of the Panama Canal. When a dispute arose relating to that project, it led to an arbitration in Florida under the Rules of the…