Courts strongly encourage the resolution of disputes by arbitration. Arbitration is a cost-effective, more efficient, and quicker alternative to traditional litigation. To advance these ends, judicial review of arbitration awards is severely limited. As one court noted, if “it were otherwise, the ostensible purpose for resort to arbitration, i.e., avoidance of litigation, would be frustrated.”
Despite these goals, challenges to arbitration awards are not uncommon. In particular, arbitration awards that shift attorney’s fees to the prevailing party or award interest and punitive damages are often challenged in court via a motion to vacate or modify the award. The various ways courts resolve these disputes (in the face of their concomitant goal of fostering the process that rendered it) are discussed in the article.