An "Interim Decision" issued by three Rabbinical Court arbitrators based in New York was not "final" and therefore could not be confirmed in federal court pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the "New York Convention"). Under the New York Convention, an award is "final" if it "resolves the rights and obligations of the parties definitively enough to preclude the need for further adjudication with respect to the issue submitted to arbitration. Thus, an award that finally and conclusively disposes of a 'separate and independent claim' may be confirmed even if it does not dispose of all the claims that were submitted to arbitration."
In this case, the Interim Decision issued by the Rabbinical Court was not confirmable because, although the award finally determined liability as to some of the issues presented, it did not finally determine the amount of damages flowing from that liability, but rather left open the possibility that the amount of damages awarded could change depending on evidence yet to be presented. Although there is some authority stating that the parties can agree to treat an arbitration panel's partial final determination as to certain issues as "final" for purposes of confirmation, those cases involved "express bifurcation of issues," which did not exist in this case. Instead, the parties had "merely consented to the issuance of such intermediate decisions." Their agreement was silent as to whether those intermediate decisions were to be treated as "final" with regard to the issues therein.
The court also found that the Interim Decision's statement
that certain issues were not susceptible to adjudication by the
panel was not capable of being confirmed by the court because it
was not even an "award," let alone a "final
award," as it did not "in any way resolve any issue
submitted to arbitration." With regard to certain "other
claims" that were summarily denied via the Interim Decision,
the court could not confirm them on the present record because
there was no indication in the award "as to what the other
claims ... are" and as a result the court was "without a
basis to determine whether any justification exist[ed] for
confirmation of the Interim Decision."
In addition, the court denied the petitioner's motion to
enforce an arbitration subpoena under section 7 of the FAA because
section 7 "explicitly confers authority only upon
arbitrators" to issue subpoenas, and the subpoena in this case
was issued by the petitioner himself, albeit purportedly "in
the name of" the arbitration panel. The court held that a
party may not invoke the authority of section 7 by issuing a
subpoena "in the name of" the arbitrators; rather, the
arbitrators themselves must issue the subpoena. Sharbat v. Muskat, Case No.
17-CV-4776 (USDC E.D.N.Y. Sept. 27, 2018).
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