United States: Time Limits For Confirmation Of Arbitral Awards In United States Courts

"The confirmation of an arbitration award," says Noah Rubins, "is a summary proceeding that merely makes what is already a final arbitration award a judgment of the court." This may seem like a straightforward concept, but the process itself can be fraught with complications when it comes to the question of time limits for the confirmation of international and domestic arbitral awards under the FAA. Rubins explores the conflicting views on this topic.

The value of an arbitration award, domestic or international, frequently depends upon the prevailing party’s ability to obtain confirmation of the award in court. Only by obtaining a court decree does the prevailing party procure the imprimatur that puts the power of the state behind the otherwise purely contractual arbitral decree. Any party that has won in arbitration and may in the future require the intervention of the state to ensure enforcement of the award, therefore, should pay careful attention to any time limits that have an impact on when a motion to confirm may be made. While untimeliness would seem to be the most avoidable ground for dismissal of a motion to confirm, recent decisions in United States courts have complicated the question of limitation periods for confirmation motions. This article attempts to make sense of conflicting authority on this issue, regarding the confirmation of domestic and international arbitral awards under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA).

The confirmation of a domestic arbitral award that involves "commerce" is normally governed by the FAA, 9 U.S.C. section 1 et seq. Commerce is defined as:

In practice, where the transaction in question necessitates the crossing of state lines by people or goods, the commerce requirement of the FAA is satisfied.¹

The provisions of the state arbitration statute of the jurisdiction where a motion to confirm is brought can also impact the confirmation matrix. An arbitration award rendered in New York in relation to a transaction or contract involving interstate commerce, for example, could be enforced under the FAA or New York’s Civil Practice Law and Rules (CPLR), or both. However, federal court jurisdiction for such an action is not a foregone conclusion. The FAA by itself does not confer subject matter jurisdiction, and so the moving party must demonstrate that the federal court has either diversity or federal question jurisdiction.²

The FAA addresses confirmation in Section 9, which provides:

While at first glance the inclusion of a one-year period within which a court "may" entertain a motion to confirm appears to establish a statute of limitations, federal courts disagree about the effect of this language.

Some courts, led by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, have held that the word "may" is permissive, essentially depriving the phrase "within one year" of any legal effect. In Sverdrup Corp. v. WHC Constructors, Inc., ⁴ Sverdrup sought to confirm an arbitral award 13 months after it was rendered. The district court ruled that Sverdrup was barred from confirmation and enforcement because it had delayed in seeking confirmation beyond the one-year period in section 9 of the FAA. The 4th Circuit disagreed, looking primarily to the language of other FAA provisions to determine legislative intent. The court noted that within the FAA, Congress used the words "may" and "must" in different sections, indicating an awareness of the difference of meaning between the two words.⁵

In contending that the one-year limit of section 9 is permissive, the Sverdrup court relied primarily upon judicial authority in other federal jurisdictions. While the earliest case cited, Kentucky River Mills v. Jackson,⁶ addresses primarily the non-exclusivity of the FAA as a ground for relief, the holding of that case has subsequently been expanded on more than one occasion to stand for the proposition that both the venue and time requirements contained in section 9 need not be obeyed. In Paul Allison, Inc. v. Minikin Storage of Omaha, Inc.,⁷ for example, the plaintiff sought confirmation of an arbitral award in Nebraska more than one year after the award was made in Oklahoma. The defendant protested that the Nebraska court had no subject matter jurisdiction, since section 9 requires the confirmation of an arbitration award in a federal court within the district where the award was made, and that the motion was time-barred in any event. The court rejected this argument, since:

Thus, the court concluded, "the ‘one year’ provision of §9 of the Arbitration Act is not tantamount to a statute of limitations." ⁸

A number of courts have followed the 4th Circuit in confirming arbitral awards under the FAA even though one year has elapsed, and those that do tend to cite Sverdrup without further comment.⁹

Other courts have taken the permissive approach when construing other "requirements" of section 9, particularly the statute’s venue provision, without addressing the effect of such an interpretation upon the timeliness of motions to confirm.¹⁰

Until recently, the prevailing view has been that section 9 means what it appears to mean: that if the prevailing party to an arbitration waits more than one year to confirm the award, at the very least he may no longer seek confirmation under the Federal Arbitration Act.¹¹ The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, for instance, in noting the different time periods allowed for motions to vacate and to confirm, stated in passing that "under the United States Arbitration Act, actions to vacate awards must be brought within three months, 9 U.S.C. §12, while actions to confirm awards must be brought within one year, 9 U.S.C. §9." ¹²

Perhaps the strongest statement limiting the time for confirmation under the FAA came from the U.S. district court for the District of Columbia in Consolidated Rail Corp. v. Del. & Hudson Rwy. Co.¹³ The court explicitly declined to follow Sverdrup, dismissing Conrail’s motion to confirm an award brought two years after it was made. In particular, the argument that FAA section 9's one-year period is permissive was rejected, since the word "may" was found to refer only to a party’s choice to bring a confirmation motion under the FAA, state statute, or common law. Thus, the D.C. Circuit held that the 6th Circuit’s rule that the language of section 9 "is not mandatory, but permissive," ¹⁴ relied upon the Sverdrup court, did not apply to the limitations period once a party has opted to confirm under the FAA. The court concluded that:

In a number of other federal jurisdictions, the question of section-9 time limits has yet to be confronted head on, but courts have indicated that the language of the statute cannot be interpreted as permissive. While such statements have come largely in the context of discussions of the venue provision of section 9, the rejection of the permissive approach to statutory construction in the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 9th circuits would appear to reinforce a one-year statute of limitations for motions to confirm under section 9 of the FAA in those jurisdictions.¹⁶

The UAA—adopted in 35 states—provides for confirmation of arbitral awards under section 11, but contains no explicit time limitation within which a motion to confirm must be brought.¹⁷ As a result, courts in UAA states have taken one of at least two approaches to time limitations on motions to confirm: importing statutes of limitations from underlying causes of action or related statutes; or following the Sverdrup line and imposing no time limitations at all.¹⁸

There is some authority, particularly in the labor field, for importing the local limitations period for the underlying claim to fill the "gap" in the UAA. In Hanson v. Larson, ¹⁹ for instance, the Minnesota Court of Appeals confirmed an award rendered over five years earlier, as the motion was brought within six years, the statute of limitations for contracts.

However, many states, such as Florida, have read the UAA literally, finding that the absence of a limitations period in the statute means that motions to confirm arbitral awards are never time-barred. Indeed, this appears to be the "prevailing pattern" in state arbitration statutes, both UAA-based and otherwise.²⁰ This was the conclusion reached in Moya v. Board of Regents, ²¹ where an employee sought to confirm an arbitral award nearly 18 months after it was rendered.²² The employer countered that the 90-day period for vacatur must also apply to confirmation, but the court disagreed:

In particular, the court cited the need for finality in arbitration awards, and noted that "the trial court’s ability to alter an arbitration award is very limited." ²³ Since no statutory grounds to vacate had been raised, nor could they be raised after 30 days, "the trial court cannot refuse to confirm an arbitrator’s award." ²⁴

Although courts in many other relevant states have not pronounced explicitly on the issue of timeliness of actions and general statements often indicate that they follow the Florida example, imposing no firm time limit to confirm. Thus, in Springfield Teachers Ass’n v. Springfield Sch. Dirs.,²⁵ the Vermont Supreme Court upheld the confirmation of an award granted 18 months after the award was made, with no comment about the timeliness of the motion. The Court merely stated that motions to vacate must be brought promptly, implying that confirmation can be brought at any time:

New York’s CPLR provides succinctly for confirmation of arbitration awards by special proceeding in section 7510, which reads:

The CPLR, bereft of the ambiguous "may" that caused the split in federal authority, has been interpreted unequivocally to set an iron-clad, one-year statute of limitations on actions to confirm arbitral awards.²⁷ Indeed, in 1958 the New York legislature passed an additional statute limiting any action on an arbitration award to one year.²⁸ This was done to prevent parties from bringing actions on awards rather than moving to confirm in order to circumvent the one-year limitation of CPLR 7510.²⁹ As a result, New York courts are generally deprived of discretion to extend the period.³⁰ Even the infancy of a party seeking to confirm does not appear to toll the one-year period.³¹ This statute of limitations begins to run from the date of the arbitrator’s final determination. The relevant date, therefore, is the date of delivery of the final award to the moving party, unless a motion to modify or vacate the award is made, in which case the period commences to run from the date of final disposition by the arbitrators of objections to the award, whether or not the motion is granted.³²

As mentioned previously, arbitration-related actions involving interstate commerce become subject to the FAA, which trumps any conflicting state arbitration statute in such cases—including provisions regarding the time to bring a motion to confirm.³³ Motions to confirm international arbitration awards that meet certain requirements, meanwhile, are governed not only by the codifications of the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention).³⁴ The New York Convention only applies to arbitration awards if they:

1. arise from "commercial" and "defined legal" relationships;
2. arise from agreements concerning subject matter that is "capable of settlement by arbitration";
3. qualify as "foreign" or "non-domestic" awards under the New York Convention;
4. satisfy the New York Convention’s reciprocity requirements; and
5. satisfy the New York Convention’s requirement for "binding" awards.³⁵

There has been some debate as to which awards are considered "foreign" and therefore fall within the FAA’s international, rather than domestic, provisions. As a general rule, however, U.S. courts have held that the New York Convention applies to arbitral awards made outside the territory of the United States ³⁶ or involving at least one non-U.S. citizen as a party.³⁷ In Bergesen v. Joseph Muller Corp.,³⁸ the 2nd Circuit summarized the widely accepted rule in this regard, followed by the 1st, 2nd 7th, 9th, and 11th circuits: awards "not considered as domestic" in the United States are those agreements and awards:

Thus, the 11th Circuit held the FAA applicable where one party had its principal place of business in Germany, even though the arbitral award in question was rendered by a tribunal sitting in the United States and deciding according to American law.⁴⁰

The scope of the New York Convention is an important consideration in a motion to confirm, since the domestic and international provisions of the FAA establish very different time limits. 9 U.S.C. §207 provides:

While the language of sections 9 and 207 are analogous and both use the permissive "may," the international provision has not been subject to a split of interpretive authority as has section 9. As a rule, courts have viewed the three-year period for awards covered by the New York Convention as mandatory. This is even true within some jurisdictions that have adopted the permissive view for domestic awards.⁴¹ As far as the author is aware, no explanation for this discrepancy has been given in published judicial decisions.

Both §207 and 9 U.S.C. §9 are silent on the question of when the award is deemed to be made, and two interpretations have been offered. Some courts have held that the three-year time period should be measured from the time a final award is "filed or delivered," the event specified for the start of the time limit for motions to vacate or modify arbitral awards, 9 U.S.C. §12.⁴² On the other hand, the court in Seetransport Wiking Trader Schiffarht-gesellschaft MBH & Co. v. Navimpex Centrala Navala ⁴³ determined that, under §207, an award is "made" on the date the arbitrators make their decision. Likewise, in Kerr-McGee Ref. Corp. v. Triumph Tankers Ltd.,⁴⁴ the court held that section 9's parallel limitation begins to run "after the date of an award."

When it met in 1983 to consider drafts of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, the Fourth Working Group examined a variety of possible texts establishing a time limit for the confirmation of arbitral awards. The group eventually decided, however, that no limitations period should be included in the Model Law.⁴⁵

A brief examination of the policy considerations to which the Working Group alluded, however, suggests that the short time limitations on arbitration awards in the United States, both domestic and international, may be less than desirable.

Within the context of court litigation, one important policy underlying statutes of limitations is the promotion of certainty in commercial affairs; if causes of action never die, a potential defendant can never really rest, and can never fully concentrate on future investment and development, and will be unable to properly assess the risks he faces. The Consolidated Rail Corp. court focused on just this concern in strictly construing the one-year period of the FAA:

Certainly this is the policy underlying the 30-day limit on motions to vacate arbitral awards; but the loser in arbitral proceedings can hardly be said to be surprised when his opponent seeks to enforce, even 20 years after the award is made. If government policy is to support the finality of arbitral awards, the defeated party should be subject to the arbitrators’ holdings as soon as they are pronounced—confirmation is thus a mere formality which changes no real legal rights or obligations.⁴⁸ As the court in Florasynth v. Pickholz insisted:

Concerns of certainty and finality led the drafters of New York’s CPLR to set a 20-year limit on actions to enforce money judgments; this limit is largely an effort to prevent judgment beneficiaries from waiting to enforce until an impecunious adversary (particularly an immortal corporate entity) has completely changed its financial base.⁵⁰ Given the federal policy favoring arbitration and ample authority treating unconfirmed arbitral awards as creating valid contractual rights, there seems little reason why a two-year-old arbitral award should be worthless, while a 12-year-old court judgment is not.

The court in Sverdrup held the one-year time frame in section 9 to be permissive in part because to otherwise would encourage alternative means of enforcement, which "would inevitably lead to inefficiency, delay and court congestion." ⁵¹ In many cases, as in Sverdrup, the prevailing parties are not restricted to the FAA in seeking enforcement—an action at law remains as an alternative to section 9 proceedings.⁵²

Furthermore, the imposition of a time limit to confirm an arbitral award, particularly a short one, will presumably induce all prevailing parties to seek confirmation in court immediately after an award is made, rather than assuming the loser will treat the award as binding. As the 1st Circuit observed in Derwin v. General Dynamics Corp., a long or non-existent limitation period on confirmation "encourages the parties voluntarily to treat the award as final and binding, foregoing judicial proceedings altogether." ⁵³ The prospect of a short limitation period, meanwhile:

The fact remains that, if the time provision of FAA section 9 is mandatory, the resulting one-year limitation period for confirming an award under that act is extremely short. Even the three-year time limit imposed upon international arbitration awards pales in comparison to the more generous provisions of other countries. In England, for instance, an arbitral award may be enforced through an "action on the award" within either six or 12 years, depending upon how the action is classified.⁵⁵ The UNCITRAL Working Group, while it eventually decided against including a statute of limitations in the Model Law, agreed that either five or 10 years would have been an appropriate time period for confirmation proceedings.⁵⁶

If arbitral institutions are to be reinforced and the use of alternative dispute resolution encouraged, any time limit on confirmation must be at least as long as the statute of limitations that parties would face on their underlying claims in the judicial system. A contract claim, for instance, could be initiated in New York courts under state law within six years and enforced within 20 years after that. An arbitration claim governed by New York law, meanwhile, would enjoy the same statute of limitations with regard to initiation of the proceedings, but, if it were brought within five years, it would be unenforceable even before the time to bring the action in court had expired.

1. (Lawson Fabrics, Inc. v. Akzona, Inc., 355 F.Supp. 1146 (S.D.N.Y. 1973); Southeastern Enameling Corp. v. General Bronze Corp., 434 F.2d 330 (5th Cir. 1970).
2. (Robert Lawrence Co. v. Devonshire Fabrics, Inc., 271 F.2d 402, 408 (2d Cir. 1959); Alan Scott Rau, "The New York Convention in American Courts," 7 Am. Rev. Int’l Arb. 213, 215 (1996).)
3. (9 U.S.C. §9.)
4. ( 989 F.2d 149 (4th Cir. 1993).)
5. (Although the 4th Circuit did not look to state statutes for comparison, the Sverdrup interpretation of §9 is bolstered by the unambiguous language used in some (non-UAA) states to set a time limit on motions to confirm. The Georgia arbitration act, for instance, provides: "The court shall confirm an award upon application of a party made within one year after its delivery to him...." OCGA §9-9-12. Georgia courts, therefore, have had little trouble finding that arbitration awards cannot be confirmed after one year has passed. Hardin Constr. Group v. Fuller Enterprises, 265 Ga. 770, 772 (1995).)
6. (206 F.2d 111 (6th Cir. 1953))
7. (452 F.Supp 573 (D.Neb. 1978).)
8. (Id., at 575)
9. (Gronacer v. Gilmore Sec. & Co., 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5430 (S.D.N.Y. 1996); Kassab v. Marantette, 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21190 (E.D.Mich. 1998).
10. (Smiga v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 766 F.2d 698 (2d Cir. 1985) (§9 permissive); Alexander Ins. Ltd. v. Executive Life Ins. Co. of New York, 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10432 (S.D.N.Y. 1991) (§§9 and 10 permissive); Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union v. Federation of Union Reps., 664 F.Supp. 995 (S.D.W.V. 1987) (§§9 and 10 permissive); Elyart v. Sono-Tek Corp., 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13519 (E.D. Penn. 1989) (§9 permissive); Loleta B. Wina v. J.C. Bradford & Co., 678 F.Supp. 622 (N.D.Miss. 1987) (§9 permissive).
11. ( Edgar H. Brenner, "The Enforcement of Arbitration Awards," Commercial Arbitration for the 1990s (1991).)
12. (Communications Workers of America v. American Telephone and Telegraph Co., 10 F.3d 887 (D.C. Cir. 1993).)
13. (867 F.Supp. 25 (D.D.C. 1994).)
14. (Kentucky River Mills, supra.)
15. (867 F.Supp., at 32.)
16. (See Arthur Imerman Undergarment Corp. v. Local 162, 145 F. Supp. 14 (D.N.J. 1956) (§9 mandatory); City of Naples v. Prepakt Concrete Co., 490 F.2d 182 (5th Cir. 1974) (§9 mandatory); Enserch Int. Exploration v. Attock Oil Co., 656 F. Supp. 1162 (N.D.Tex. 1987) (§§9 and 10 mandatory); Island Creek Coal Sales Co. v. City of Gainesville, Florida, 729 F.2d 1046 (6th Cir. 1984) (§9 mandatory); Sunshine Beauty Supplies, Inc. v. United States District Court for Central Dist. of Cal., 872 F.2d 310 (9th Cir. 1989) (§9 mandatory).)
17. (Uniform Arbitration Act, §10. The section provides: "Upon application of a party, the Court shall confirm an award, unless, within the time limits hereinafter imposed, grounds are urged for vacating or modifying or correcting the award, in which case the court shall proceed as provided in Sections 12 and 13.")
18. (Some states, such as Michigan, have enacted procedural time limitations that apply to the local arbitration statute. See, for instance, City of Huntington Woods v. Ajax Paving Indus. Inc., 492 N.W.2d 463 (Mich.App. 1992); MCR 3.602(I) (one year procedural time limit imposed on actions to confirm arbitral awards).)
19. (459 N.W.2d 339 (Minn.App. 1990).)
20. (Ian R. MacNeil, Richard E. Speidel, Thomas J. Stipanowich, Federal Arbitration Law, §38.3.2.3 (1994).)
21. (629 So.2d 282 (Fl.App. 1993).)
22. (Although the court did not address the issue, the facts of Moya provide a strong justification for long or non-existent time limits on confirmation. After Moya prevailed in arbitration, he returned to work and complied with the arbitrator’s demand that he apologize to his superiors. However, after several months, it became clear that his employer was not fulfilling the provisions of the award. If a one-year limitation period had applied, Moya might have been prevented from enforcing the award if his employer at first obeyed and then disregarded its provisions after one year had passed.)
23. (629 So.2d, at 284)
24. (Where an arbitration award falls within the jurisdictional scope of the FAA, there is some question whether the supremacy of the federal statute would allow a state court to confirm the award beyond the one-year limitation of §9. Arguably, however, the absence of a time limitation provides greater, rather than less, protection to arbitration awards, and therefore FAA preemption would not be appropriate. See MacNeil, Speidel, Stipanowich, at §38.3.2.3.)
25. (705 A2d 541 (Vt. 1997).)
26. (Id., at 546.)
27. (Robinson v. City of New York, 654 N.Y.S.2d 25 (App.Div., 1st Dept. 1997); Belli v. Matthew Bender & Co., Inc., 263 N.Y.S.2d 846 (App.Div., 1st Dept. 1965); Teachers Ass’n of the Tarrytowns v. Tarrytown Bd. of Ed., 399 N.Y.S.2d 45 (App.Div., 2nd Dept. 1977); Protocom Devices, Inc. v. Figueroa, 545 N.Y.S.2d 527 (Sup.Ct. 1989).)
28. (CPLR 215(5).)
29. (Vincent C. Alexander, "Practice Commentaries," 7B McKinney’s Cons. Laws of N.Y. §7510, at 739 (1998).)
30. (Teachers Ass’n of the Tarrytowns, supra, note 27.)
31. (Elliot v. Green Bus Lines, Inc., 459 N.Y.S.2d 419 (N.Y. 1983).)
32. (Belli, supra, note 27, at 848.)
33. (Nevertheless, in a somewhat futile attempt to promote themselves as international arbitration fora, a number of states have passed specific "international arbitration" legislation, either incorporating the UNCITRAL Model Law (such as Connecticut, California, and Texas) or based largely upon it (Florida and Georgia). Because the FAA overrides any contradictory provisions of state law, it is unclear when such laws would ever apply. See David W. Rivkin, "International Arbitration," Commercial Arbitration for the 1990s, 123, 125, 136 (1991).)
34. (9 U.S.C. §§201 et seq. As to motions to vacate international arbitral awards in U.S. courts, there is disagreement as to which FAA provisions provide the operable time limit. The court in Tesoro Petroleum Corp. v. Asamera, 798 F.Supp. 400, 402 (W.D.Tex. 1992) determined that a motion to vacate is not an action or proceeding falling under the New York Convention, and therefore any such action must be brought under the general (domestic) provisions of the FAA. Under this interpretation, a limitation of three months would be imposed. 9 U.S.C.A. §10. The court in Jamaica Commodity Trading Co. Ltd. v. Connell Rice & Sugar Co., Inc., 1991 WL 123962 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), meanwhile, found that the three-month deadline would not apply to actions to vacate international arbitral awards, since the New York Convention sets no limit for bringing such a suit. The court reasoned that the incorporation of New York Convention grounds for refusing to confirm an award in §207 of the FAA extended the three-year statute of limitations to motions to vacate, at least as long as they are submitted in response to a motion to confirm. See also Hartford Fire Ins. v. Lloyd’s Syndicate, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10858 (D.Conn. 1997).)
35. (Gary Born, "International Commercial Arbitration," 466 (1994).)
36. (Spier v. Calzaturificio Tecnica, S.P.A., 71 F.Supp.2d 279, 282 (S.D.N.Y. 1999).)
37. (Sigval Bergesen v. Joseph Muller Corp., 710 F.2d 928 (2nd Cir. 1983); Transmarine Seaways Corp. of Monrovia v. Marc Rich & Co., A.G., 480 F.Supp. 352, 353 (S.D.N.Y. 1979).)
38. (710 F.2d 928, 932 (2d Cir. 1983).)
39. (Id., at 932. See also Yusuf Ahmed Alghanim & Sons. W.L.L. v. Toys "R" Us, Inc., 126 F.3d 15, 1819 (2d Cir. 1997); Jain v. de Mere, 51 F.3d 686, 689 (7th Cir. 1995); Industrial Risk Insurers v. M.A.N. Gutehoffnungshutte GmbH, 141 F.3d 1434, 1441 (11th Cir. 1998); Ministry of Defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran v. Gould Inc., 887 F.2d 1357, 1362 (9th Cir. 1989); Ledee v. Ceramiche Ragno, 684 F.2d 184, 186-87 (1st Cir. 1982).)
40. (Industrial Risk Insurers, 141 F.3d, at 1441.)
41. (Compare, for example, Gronager v. Gilmore Sec. & Co., 1996 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 5430 (S.D.N.Y. 1996) (§9 time limit is permissive), with Seetransport Wiking Trader Schiffarht-gesellschaft MBH & Co. v. Navimpex Centrala Navala, 989 F.2d 572, 581 (2nd Cir. 1993) (§207 time limit is mandatory).)
42. (See MacNeil, Speidel, Stipanowich, §38.3.2.1.)
43. (989 F.2d 572, 581 (2nd Cir. 1993).)
44. (740 F.Supp. 288, 289 (S.D.N.Y. 1990).)
45. (Fourth Working Group Report, A/CN.9/245, 22 Sept. 1983; for a summary of the discussions leading to this decision, see Howard Holzmann and Joseph Neuhaus, "A Guide to the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration," 1120, 1153-1157 (1989).)
46. (Id., at 1157.)
47. (867 F.Supp., at 31.)
48. (Indeed, the treatment of arbitral awards for purposes of res judicata demonstrates that properly rendered awards are in many ways equivalent to court judgments, even without the formality of confirmation. See, for example, Corey v. Avco-Lycoming Division, 307 A.2d 155 (Conn. 1973) ("an arbitration award, confirmed or not, has preclusive effect regarding issues of law and fact litigated before and determined by an arbitration panel."))
49. (750 F.2d 171, 176 (2nd Cir. 1984).)
50. (CPLR §200(b).)
51. (989 F.2d, at 155.)
52. (See Kentucky River Mills, supra.)
53. (719 F.2d 484, 489 (1st Cir. 1983).)
54. (Id.)
55. (Limitation Act 1980, §7 (six-year limitation upon an action "to enforce an award where the submission is not by an instrument under seal"); Id., §8 (12-year limit upon an "action upon a specialty"). See Michael Mustill and Stephen Boyd, Commercial Arbitration (1989).)
56. (Holzmann and Neuhaus, supra, at 1157.)

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