New AAA/ICDR Optional Appellate Arbitration Rules – Questions Abound

On November 1, 2013, the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and its international branch, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), introduced new Optional Appellate Arbitration Rules. As the title indicates, the new "Optional" Appellate Rules only apply where the parties have agreed to use them. Where that is the case, the new rules permit a dissatisfied party to obtain private appellate review of alleged "material and prejudicial" errors of law and/or "clearly erroneous" determinations of fact made by an arbitration panel. The new AAA/ICDR Appellate Rules are available here.

Private appellate review of arbitration awards is not new. Other arbitral bodies – most notably, CPR and JAMS – have offered similar rules for more than a decade.¹ Alternatively, parties sometimes insert ad hoc appeal procedures in contracts. Under either approach, the goal is to balance perceived arbitration advantages (efficiency, lower costs, speed and finality), against