Arbitration; Vice-President, ICC Institute of World Business Law.

The relationship between the arbitrators and the parties is of a contractual nature because, in contrast to a municipal judge, the arbitrator's powers do not derive from his position within the judiciary but from the parties' consent. There has been some uncertainty, however, as to whether that contractual relationship is distinct from the arbitration agreement. In Hyundai, the English Court of Appeal held that "on appointment, the arbitrator becomes a third party to the arbitration agreement which becomes a trilateral contract".1 However, French case law has characterized the arbitrator's contract as a separate agreement.2 This view is preferable,3 as the scope of the two contracts is clearly distinct: the arbitration agreement encompasses the parties' agreement to arbitrate, while the arbitrator's contract deals with the mutual rights and obligations of the arbitrators and the parties. The arbitrator's contract is not only distinct from the arbitration agreement but also autonomous from it: when it expires - for example because the arbitrator has rendered his award and is therefore functus - the parties are left with their obligation to pay the fees due to the arbitral tribunal, and the arbitral tribunal with the duty to perform its post-award obligations.4 Likewise, the termination of the arbitration agreement does not affect the arbitrator's liability towards the parties.

In contrast to the arbitration agreement, the arbitrator's contract is rarely contained in an instrumentum. Terms of reference may contain clauses that regulate the parties' and the arbitrator's mutual obligations, but in many instances the arbitration proceeds with no such agreement being signed. It should also be noted that national laws, as well as the UNCITRAL Model Law, are silent on the arbitrator's status and the exact definition of his rights and obligations towards the parties. The paucity of national laws on the nature and content of the arbitrator's contract may be a consequence of a general perception that the arbitrator's status is as much institutional as contractual. As Poudret and Besson rightly note: "the contents of the contract with the arbitrator reflect rather than determine his jurisdictional function."5 It is the jurisdictional nature of the arbitrator's mission that determines his status, as well as the rights and obligations that derive from his functions.

It is not within the scope of this short article to analyze how the arbitrator's contract is formed, the issues raised by the status of the arbitrator and the law that applies to his rights and obligations. The scope of this article is limited to the question of determining who has jurisdiction to decide on disputes arising from the arbitrator's contract, an issue on which there is little legal literature and that has given rise to a fair level of uncertainty in recent cases.

Of course, the parties could agree to include in their arbitrator's contract an arbitration agreement or a choice of forum provision. There is no reason to believe that such provisions would be invalid, except in the limited situations in which reasons of protective public policy would render the parties incapable to submit to arbitration, as the situation may be with respect to consumers. Parties and arbitrators may indeed be well advised to agree on the competent jurisdiction in case of a dispute between them, for example by including carefully drafted provisions to that effect in the terms of reference. Providing for the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts at the seat of the arbitration, even in the case of an alleged liability of the arbitrator, may substantially reduce the risk to the arbitrator of being involved in court litigation in other countries where mounting a defence may be more expensive or more difficult. However, it is a fact that such clauses are extremely rare, which leaves open a number of default possibilities: (a) jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal itself; (b) jurisdiction of the courts at the seat of the arbitration; (c) jurisdiction at the place where the arbitration proceedings took place (e.g. the place of the hearings); (d) jurisdiction of the courts at the place of domicile of the arbitrator; or (e) jurisdiction of the courts at the domicile of one of the parties, and so forth.

The threshold question is whether the arbitrators themselves may have jurisdiction to decide on disputes arising from their own contract with the parties. The instinctive reaction is nemo judex in re sua. That principle, however, does not necessarily apply to all possible disputes arising from the arbitrator's contract. Obviously, any dispute relating to the arbitrator's liability could not be decided by the arbitrator himself. The same principle should apply to disputes relating to the arbitrator's fees and expenses. In this respect, the Paris Court of appeal decided that

"the determination of the amount of the arbitrators' fees is not part of the dispute; such determination pertains to the arbitrator's contract, which is distinct from the contract between the parties and in respect to which the dispute arose. As a consequence, the determination by the arbitrators of their fees, in the award or in a preliminary decision, has no legal value and cannot be the scope of setting-aside proceedings. A dispute with respect to the amount of such fees pertains to the court of competent jurisdiction, in the context of an action opposing the debtor of the fees to the arbitrators."6

In a later case, the Paris Court of Appeal decided that "the determination of their fees by the arbitrators has no jurisdictional nature and only relates to the contractual relationship between the arbitrators and the parties".7 In an important decision on 11 November 2010, the swiss Federal Tribunal took a similar approach. In that case, the arbitral tribunal had decided to stay the proceedings because the fees and costs they had determined pursuant to the swiss Rules had not been paid. The swiss Federal Tribunal found that such a decision could not be the subject matter of setting-aside proceedings as it has no jurisdictional value. The swiss Federal Tribunal considered that "an arbitral tribunal had no authority to issue a binding determination about the remuneration it might be entitled to arising out of the arbitrator agreement".8 It should be noted, however, that such reasoning is only applicable to the amount of the arbitrators' fees and expenses, while the apportionment of such costs between the parties - or even an order to a party to pay its share of the advance on costs to the institution - clearly falls within the jurisdictional mission of the arbitral tribunal. german law takes a similar approach.9

Poudret and Besson criticize the Paris Court of Appeal's reasoning and submit that "an award given by an arbitrator is not 'devoid of legal value', but can and must be challenged if a party wishes to prevent it from becoming legally binding (see NCPC Art. 1502(1)). A determination by the arbitrators of their fees should follow the same approach."10 According to these authors, however, the arbitral tribunal's jurisdiction to determine its own fees should not be presumed: unless there is an express provision empowering the arbitrators to determine their own fees, an award deciding on this point should be quashed in setting-aside proceedings.11 The presumption is therefore that the arbitral tribunal lacks jurisdiction with respect to its own fees. In practice, issues may arise in ad hoc arbitration or in institutional arbitrations in the rare instances in which the institution does not itself fix the costs of the arbitration. Most of the time, the parties and the arbitrators will have agreed in advance on an hourly rate or another method of determining the arbitrators' fees and expenses, but those arrangements may still give rise to dispute at the time of fixing the final amount claimed by the tribunal. It may of course be that the parties expressly agreed to empower the arbitrators to determine the amounts of their fees. such an agreement, however, is rarely if ever contained in the parties' arbitration agreement or terms of reference.

Some institutional rules provide that the arbitral tribunal has the power to determine its own fees.12 The question is then whether the parties have any recourse against the arbitrators' determination. In this respect, certain national statutes provide for the parties' right to ask for a judicial determination, which is a healthy principle. such is the case in England13 and sweden.14 In Italy, Article 814-2 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that, when the arbitrators have determined the amount of their fees, such determination is not binding upon the parties, who can seek a determination of the same in court. Is court assistance available in the absence of such a statutory provision? The answer to that question depends from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but there is no reason to believe that disputes arising from the arbitrator's contract could not be submitted to the competent courts, like in the case of any other contract. such courts should primarily be the courts of the seat of the arbitration, but normal choice of forum rules15 may lead to the selection of other courts, which is a potential source of uncertainty and difficulty. From that perspective, the inclusion in the UNCITRAL Rules of Arbitration 2010 of a provision allowing the parties to refer the arbitrators' determination on their fees to the appointing authority16 is a very useful tool.

The distinction between the arbitration agreement and the arbitrator's contract may lead to more difficulties when the dispute between the arbitrator and the parties does not relate to the arbitrator's fees but to the existence or validity of the arbitrator's appointment or to alleged wrongdoing committed by the arbitrator during the arbitration. In such occurrences, there is a serious risk that the jurisdiction of the court having to hear such disputes will unduly interfere with that of the arbitral tribunal or of the courts having to review the award in setting-aside proceedings. Two recent cases illustrate such risks.

A. Elf Neftegaz v. Mattei

The dispute in this case related to the validity of the appointment of an arbitrator. In a nutshell, the facts of the case are as follows. In july 2009, some Russian entities initiated court proceedings before the French court of Nanterre to the effect of obtaining the appointment of an ad hoc representative of Elf Neftegaz, a subsidiary of the Elf Total group which had been dissolved and placed into liquidation in 2004. The basis for that application was that the plaintiffs had concluded a contract with Elf Neftegaz in 1992, which the latter had failed to perform, as a consequence of which the plaintiffs intended to start proceedings on the basis of the arbitration agreement included in the contract. Following that application, the court appointed an ad hoc representative of Elf Neftegaz in july 2009. A request for arbitration was notified to this representative, who subsequently appointed an arbitrator. Allegedly, this appointment was made with no prior consultation with the Elf Total group. Having learnt of the appointment, Elf and Total sought to obtain from the court of Nanterre the withdrawal of the order appointing the ad hoc representative of Elf Neftegaz (who had appointed the 'arbitrator'). This application was granted and, on september 2009, the court withdrew its july 2009 decision on the basis that the Russian entities had no legitimate interest in seeking the appointment of an ad hoc representative of Elf Neftegaz. At the same time, the court ordered the ad hoc representative that had been appointed in july to refrain from any further initiative and ordered the 'arbitrator' who had been appointed to also refrain from taking any further steps in the purported arbitration proceedings. The september 2009 decision was final and had retroactive effect. In spite of the court order and further letters from the purported appointing party, the 'arbitrator' refused to step down, proceeded with the arbitration and appointed, jointly with the arbitrator appointed by the claimants' party, the chairman of the arbitral tribunal. The arbitral proceedings were seated in stockholm under the UNCITRAL Rules, the stockholm Chamber of Commerce being the appointing authority.

Elf and Total initially tried to obtain an anti-suit injunction in summary proceedings from the Paris court.17 Meanwhile, Elf and Total had obtained from the Paris court the appointment of another ad hoc representative of Elf Neftegaz, who then sued the 'arbitrator' on the merits. The claimants had based the jurisdiction of the Paris court to entertain the suit on the domicile of the 'arbitrator'. The relief sought was a declaration that the purported arbitration was a fraud and an order to the three arbitrators to suspend their operations. such relief was essentially sought on the basis that the withdrawal by the court of its initial decision to appoint an ad hoc representative had retroactive effect and, therefore, that the 'arbitrator' had effectively never been appointed as an arbitrator by Elf Neftegaz. The 'arbitrator' objected that the claim amounted to an undue interference by the court in the arbitral tribunal's jurisdiction to assess its own jurisdiction and that the claim was all the more inadmissible given that the arbitration was seated in stockholm. As a consequence, according to the 'arbitrator', the arbitral tribunal had exclusive jurisdiction to decide on the validity of its own constitution. According to Elf Neftegaz, on the other hand, the dispute did not relate to the arbitration agreement but to the existence of the arbitrator's appointment and to the formation of the arbitrator's contract, as a consequence of which the purported arbitral tribunal was deprived of jurisdiction to entertain it.

On 22 september 2010,18 the Tribunal of Paris admitted its jurisdiction on the basis that, in spite of the fact that the seat of the arbitration was in stockholm:

"The present dispute does not relate, even indirectly, to the validity of the arbitration agreement, to the merits of the dispute submitted to arbitration, to the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal to determine the dispute or to its jurisdictional powers. […] The assessment of whether Elf Neftegaz was properly represented and of the conditions in which the arbitrator's contract was or was not formed between such company and the arbitrator falls within the jurisdiction of the Paris court, and the arbitral tribunal, which the respondent alleges to be the competent jurisdiction to assess those claims, cannot decide them."

As a consequence, the Tribunal of Paris treated its jurisdiction to decide matters relating to the formation of the arbitrator's contract exactly in the same manner as if it were a dispute related to the arbitrator's fees: disputes arising from the arbitrator's contract cannot be decided by the arbitrator himself because nemo judex in re sua.

However, this decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal of Paris on 6 january 2011.19 The Court of Appeal considered that

"in international arbitration, French courts are deprived of any power to decide, before the award is rendered, on the regularity of the arbitral tribunal's constitution, since such tribunal, which constitution has been completed, does not have its seat in France and the arbitral proceedings are not conducted according to French law. The fact that a French party to the arbitration may challenge the validity of the arbitrator's contract concluded in its name with one of the arbitrators cannot have the effect of derogating from that principle."

Accordingly, it falls upon the arbitral tribunal itself, or upon the courts at the seat insofar as their intervention is permitted by the relevant law, to decide a dispute between a party and an arbitrator as to the existence or validity of the latter's appointment. This decision deserves to be approved, since it is consistent with the general principle in French law according to which courts are prevented from intervening in the arbitration proceedings and assessing the validity of the arbitration agreement before the award is rendered, unless said agreement is manifestly void or inapplicable. In this case, an arbitral tribunal had been constituted - although apparently improperly - and arbitral proceedings were pending. The question whether or not the arbitrator had been properly appointed by Elf Neftegaz is therefore intrinsically linked to the question whether the arbitral tribunal has jurisdiction to decide the dispute between the parties. Contrary to what the Tribunal of Paris decided in its september 2010 decision, assessing whether the arbitrator's contract was properly formed implies an assessment on the arbitral tribunal's jurisdictional powers.

The Elf Neftegaz case illustrates that, although the arbitration agreement and the arbitrator's contract are autonomous one from the other, a dispute relating to the latter cannot always be decided in isolation from the former. This is another manifestation of the peculiarity of the arbitrator's contract: in contrast to many other contracts, the same judge will not be competent to decide matters relating to its formation and disputes deriving from its performance.

B. Petrec

The close connections between the arbitration agreement, the award and disputes arising from the arbitrator's contract are illustrated by the Petrec case. Petrec and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had entered in a joint venture in 1993, calling for the creation of a local entity called Petrec Nigeria Ltd. (PNL). A dispute arose from the joint venture agreement, and Petrec initiated arbitration proceedings in 1998 under the rules of the Chamber of Commerce of geneva. The tribunal issued a partial award in july 2000, finding that Petrec had standing to pursue its claims and that NNPC had failed to contribute its share of capital to PNL. In a subsequent phase of the proceedings, however, NNPC produced a copy of a certificate showing that Petrec had been incorporated well after the joint venture agreement and the request for arbitration. The arbitral tribunal subsequently rendered a partial award holding that Petrec lacked standing to pursue the arbitration. Petrec challenged the award before the swiss Federal Tribunal, which rejected the challenge in April 2002. Petrec then unsuccessfully sought to enforce the partial award in Texas. In dismissing the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the relevant district court found that, in seeking confirmation of the partial award (which had found that Petrec had standing to pursue its claims), Petrec was effectively requesting that the final award (which had found that it lacked standing) be set aside or modified.

In september 2005, Petrec and its mother company gulf Petro brought an action before the Eastern district Court of Texas, alleging that the final award had been procured by bribing the arbitrators and that two of the arbitrators had engaged in ex parte communications with NNPC that casted doubt over their impartiality. The plaintiffs named NNPC and certain Nigerian officials, as well as the three arbitrators, as defendants and sought damages in an amount equivalent to their claims in the arbitration.

The Eastern district Court dismissed the claim on the basis that it constituted a "collateral attack" on the final award and that, based on the New york Convention, it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to entertain it. On 7 january 2008, the Court of Appeal (5th Circuit) confirmed this decision. 20

The Court first considered that, though the "essential purpose" of the New york Convention relates to the recognition and enforcement of foreign awards, its "underlying theme as a whole is the autonomy of international arbitration". As a consequence, according to the Court, the courts of the country in which or under the arbitration law of which the award is made have "primary jurisdiction" over the award. Though the New york Convention "does not restrict the grounds on which primary jurisdiction courts may annul an award", in all other signatory countries "the Convention significantly limits the review of arbitral awards, and parties can only contest whether that country should enforce the arbitral award".

The Court did not reject the claim on the basis of the final award's res judicata, as "the nature of gulf Petro's claims […] relate first and foremost to the alleged tainting of the arbitration proceedings rather than the underlying dispute itself ", and the alleged wrongdoing "though certainly arising out of the arbitration proceedings, is not a matter that was decided in those proceedings".

However, the Court of Appeal upheld the Eastern district Court's decision on jurisdictional grounds. The plaintiffs had argued that the corruption and fraud claims directed against the arbitrators were not subject to the jurisdiction of the courts at the seat of the arbitration under the New york Convention. The Court disagreed21 and considered that the allegations of corruption and fraud were indeed a collateral attack on the award. Though the Court "recognize[d] that the specific allegations of bribery and corruption are separate from the contract dispute that was the subject of the arbitration", it also noted that "since gulf Petro asks for as damages the award it believes it should have received in the arbitration", entertaining the claim "would require an inquiry into questions of liability that were already presented to the arbitration panel". The Court continued by considering that "the ultimate significance of the conduct [gulf Petro] complains of can only be found in the effect it had on the award", as the alleged losses were "not caused by the alleged acts of wrongdoing in and of themselves" but derived from "the impact that these acts had on the final award". The Court consequently held that "under the framework of the New york Convention, the proper method of obtaining relief is by moving to set aside or modify the award in a court of primary jurisdiction". The Court also dealt with the argument that denying the Us court jurisdiction in this matter would lead to preclude the application of statutes such as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and decided that dismissing the claim "only bars jurisdiction over claims that […] are determined to be a collateral attack on a foreign arbitral award". The Court added that it did not believe "that the result will preclude lawsuits that touch only tangentially on an arbitration, since a plaintiff need only be able to allege wrongdoing that has caused harm independent of its effect on the arbitration award".

Gulf Petro finally argued that the Us court should retain jurisdiction because it would otherwise have no means of vindicating its new claims of bribery and corruption in switzerland for "it has been unable to initiate a criminal proceeding against the arbitrators in that country, such an action apparently being a prerequisite to obtaining reconsideration of the swiss court's earlier decision". The Court was unmoved by the argument and considered that

"in the interest of finality, every primary jurisdiction undoubtedly will foreclose review of an award at some point. It would seriously undermine the functioning of the Convention if the fact that the opportunity for judicial review of an award in the primary jurisdiction has passed could open the door to otherwise impermissible review in a secondary jurisdiction."

C. Tentative Conclusion

Elf Neftegaz and Petrec shed an interesting light on the jurisdictional issues that can arise from the arbitrator's contract. Claims directed against an arbitrator can conflict with principles such as Kompetenz-Kompetenz or with the finality of the award. In addition, in the absence of uniform rules applying to the status of the arbitrator, a multiplicity of choice of court rules can enter into play, depending on the nature of the claims directed against the arbitrator.

As far as the existence and validity of the arbitrator's contract is concerned, a distinction should be made depending on whether the arbitral tribunal has already been constituted. If, like in Elf Neftegaz, a dispute arises after the constitution of the arbitral tribunal as to the existence and validity of the arbitrator's appointment, that dispute is so closely related to the arbitral tribunal's jurisdiction that it should be resolved, depending on the applicable rules, by the arbitral tribunal itself or by the courts at the seat of the arbitration if the relevant law so permits. If, on the contrary, the arbitral tribunal has not yet been constituted, it should fall upon the law of the seat to determine whether local courts may intervene and whether the arbitral tribunal should be constituted in spite of the existing objection as to the arbitrator's appointment.

If the dispute relates to the exercise by the arbitrators of their jurisdictional powers (such as the way they conduct the proceedings), it is self-evident that it should be dealt with by the arbitral tribunal itself, subject to the review of the award by the competent courts.

If the dispute relates to the arbitrators' fees and expenses, as stated above, it may not be decided in a binding manner by the arbitral tribunal itself. It therefore falls upon the competent courts to address it, and the question, in the absence of a specific provision to that effect, is whether that jurisdiction should fall upon the court at the seat of the arbitration of whether general choice of forum rules should apply. It is certainly preferable to avoid the uncertainties of having to resort to multiple choice of court rules and to concentrate all disputes at the seat of the arbitration. However, the dispute may be decided by an arbitral institution or by an appointing authority, as provided by Article 41 of the UNCITRAL Rules of Arbitration (2010). In such cases, however, there may be an issue as to the administrative or jurisdictional nature of the decision made by the institution or the appointing authority.

Issues may also arise as to the termination of the arbitrator's contract. These issues are closely linked to the award's res judicata. The arbitrator's mission terminates when the tribunal is functus, and that moment occurs, with respect to a given claim, when the arbitral tribunal has decided it in a final manner. determining whether the arbitral tribunal is functus with respect to a given claim may fall under the principle of Kompetenz-Kompetenz or may be determined by courts. Issues may also arise with respect to an arbitrator's resignation or to the parties' joint decision to dismiss the arbitrator. In many

jurisdictions, unjustified resignation is wrongful and may subject the arbitrator to liability. such disputes thus fall to be resolved by the court having jurisdiction to determine the arbitrator's liability. As to the parties' decision to dismiss the arbitrator, the issues that may arise therefrom will mostly be issues of fees and expenses that should, as explained above, be submitted to the courts at the seat of the arbitration.

As to the arbitrator's liability, the situation is very different depending on whether the award has been rendered and whether that award is valid or has been quashed. As a matter of principle, except in the case of an unjustified resignation, there should be no possible liability of an arbitrator before the award is made. As rightly stated by the Us Court of Appeal in Petrec, the harm suffered by a party in the case of misconduct of an arbitrator only exists once the award is rendered. There may be situations, however, in which an arbitrator's misconduct causes damage independently of the award. such might be the case, for example, if confidential business information has been leaked. In such a scenario, the likely course of action for the aggrieved party is to challenge the arbitrator and, once the arbitrator has been replaced, to sue him for damages. Once the author of the wrongdoing is no longer an arbitrator, such a claim can de decided by any court having jurisdiction under the normally applicable choice of court rules.

As to claims for wrongdoing directed against an arbitrator after the award is made, the situation is different depending on whether the award is valid or has been quashed. If the award has not been challenged, or has been upheld, then it is very likely that in most scenarios a claim directed against an arbitrator would amount, to use the terms adopted by the Us Court of Appeal in Petrec, to a collateral attack on the award. This falls to be resolved by the courts at the seat, as the case may be in the context of a claim for revision of the award, as such actions are possible, for example, in France and switzerland. If, on the other hand, the award has been quashed due to an arbitrator's misconduct, there is no impediment to a claim for liability to be adjudicated by any competent court, subject of course to the applicable rules limiting or excluding the arbitrator's liability.

1
K/S Norjarl A/S v. Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., [1992] 1 q.B. 863, 885.

2
Paris, 19 december 1996, Qualiconsult v. Group Lincoln, Revue de l'arbitrage (1998) p. 121.

3
On this point, see g. Born, International Commercial Arbitration (Kluwer, 2009) p. 1606.

4
On this point, see the proceedings of the AsA 2011 Annual Conference on Post-Award Issues (forthcoming).

5
j.-F. Poudret and s. Besson, Comparative Law of International Arbitration (Thomson/sweet & Maxwell, 2002) p. 437.

6
Paris, 19 december 1996, Qualiconsult v. Group Lincoln, Revue de l'arbitrage (1998) p. 121, comment by C. jarrosson, p. 124.

7
Paris, 17 March 2005, SNCE v. Interim Nation, Revue de l'arbitrage (2005) p. 790.

8
swiss supreme Court, 4A_391/2010 and 4A_399/2010.

9
O. sandrock, 'Claims for Advances on Costs and the Power of the Arbitral Tribunals to Order Their Payment', Liber Amicorum Robert Briner (ICC Publishing, 2005) p. 715. The author notes that § 1057 WPO "deals only with the allocation of the costs between the parties, but does not empower the arbitral tribunal to fix the amount of those costs".

10
Poudret and Besson, supra n. 5, at p. 443.

11
Ibid.

12
Arts. 38-39 of the 1976 UNCITRAL Rules of Arbitration; Art. 38(a) of the swiss Rules. In such cases, however, the swiss Rules provide that the fees have to be determined in accordance with the accompanying schedule of Fees.

13
section 28-2 of the Arbitration Act 1996.

14
Arts. 37-2 and 41 of the swedish Act of 1999.

15
Council Regulation (EC) No. 44/2001 of 22 december 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters would presumably not apply to such matters, given the arbitration exclusion contained in this instrument.

16
Art. 41-4 of the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules 2010.

17
Paris, 6 january 2010, Elf Aquitaine and Total v. K. & R., Cahiers de l'arbitrage/Paris Journal of International Arbitration, 2010-2, p. 513, with a case note by L. degos, 'L'absence de pouvoir d'injonction du juge étatique envers l'arbitre en application d'un principe de non-inférence', Cahiers de l'arbitrage/Paris Journal of International Arbitration, 2010-3, p. 853.

18
Cahiers de l'arbitrage/Paris Journal of International Arbitration, 2010-4, p. 1176.

19
Paris Court of Appeal, 6 january 2011, No. 10/20243.

20
06-40713, yB XXXIII, 1089.

21
The judgment discusses various precedents. In the first, a party dissatisfied by an award had brought suit against the institution for alleged breaches of its procedural rights (Corey v. New York Stock Exchange, 691 F.2d 1205 (6th Cir. 1982)); in the second, a party dissatisfied by an award had sued the respondent party for damages, based on the relationships between that party and the chairman of the arbitral tribunal, purporting that such relationships had impaired his impartiality (Decker v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 205 F. 3d 906 (6th Cir. 2000)).