Friday, April 15, 2005

You gotta sign. Sarhank had a contract with one of Oracle Corp.'s subsidiaries. It sought arbitration not only with the subsidiary, but with Oracle itself. Although Sarhank had an arbitration agreement with the subsidiary, Oracle had never signed such an agreement. The arbitrators (under Egyptian law) found that Oracle was bound to arbitrate and rendered an award against both Oracle and the subsidiary. Sarhank sought to enforce the award in America under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The Second Circuit held that it was not bound by the finding of the arbitrators as to whether Oracle was bound by the arbitration clause and found that the award could not be enforced as Oracle had not agreed to arbitrate. The decision can be found here.

No comments: