Judicial Review of International Commercial Arbitral Awards by National Courts in the United States and India

Article V of the New York convention lays down the provisions under which the recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award may be refused. The United States and India are signatories to the Convention. Section 10(a) of the Federal Arbitration Act in the United States limits the scope of judicial review of the arbitral awards to a clear list of grounds of vacatur. The national courts of the United States have recognized several non-statutory grounds of which manifest disregard of the law as a standard of review is the focus in this thesis. In fact, the state of Georgia has also adopted this ground into its statute in 2003. Section 34 of the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act of 1996 lays down the provisions for setting aside arbitral awards of which the ground of ‘public policy’ has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of India broadening its scope to include ‘patent illegality’ which essentially meant “error of law” as a new ground for setting aside an arbitral award. Scope of judicial review by national courts, both in the United States and in India, should be limited to the statutory provisions so as to not frustrate the purpose of arbitration