Supreme Court Docket Report - June 10, 2013

Keywords: FAA, preconditions, arbitration, Argentina, United Kingdom, bilateral investment treaty

On June 10, 2013 the Supreme Court granted certiorari in one case of interest to the business community:

Federal Arbitration Act—Preconditions to Arbitration

Under the Federal Arbitration Act, when parties to an arbitration agreement disagree about whether a particular dispute should be arbitrated, that threshold question of arbitrability is ordinarily decided by a court unless the agreement specifies that it should be resolved by the arbitrators. (By contrast, procedural questions about the arbitration itself are generally decided by the arbitrators.) Today, in BG Group PLC v. Argentina, No. 12-138, the Court granted certiorari to address whether a court or the arbitrators should decide whether the claimant has complied with a contractual precondition to bringing an arbitration.