Hall Street. Assocs., L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc

In Hall Street. Assocs., L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc., 552 U.S. 576, 128 S. Ct. 1396, 170 L. Ed. 2d 254 (2008), the Supreme Court held parties to an arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. 1 et seq., may not by contract expand the scope of judicial review of the award beyond that provided by the statute. 552 U.S. at 588 (limited review afforded by federal act "substantiates a national policy favoring arbitration with just the limited review needed to maintain arbitration's essential virtue of resolving disputes straightaway"). The Court, however, expressly left open whether parties to arbitrations governed by state law may agree to more expansive judicial review. Id. at 590. Even before Hall Street, the drafters of the 2000 revision to the Uniform Arbitration Act, which Arizona adopted in 2010, debated but ultimately rejected a provision allowing parties to agree on "judicial review of arbitration awards for errors of law or fact." Unif. Arbitration Act 23 cmt. B (2000). The drafters observed that the absence of such a provision "effectively leaves the issue of the legal propriety of this means for securing review of awards to the developing case law under the Federal Arbitration Act and state arbitration statutes." Id. cmt. B(5). Section 4(c) of the revised Uniform Arbitration Act, A.R.S. 12-3004(C), provides that parties "may not waive or . . . vary the effect of" section 23 of the uniform act, A.R.S. 12-3023, which in turn provides that "the court shall vacate" an arbitration award "procured by corruption, fraud or other undue means," and in other specified circumstances. See11 supra.