Outokumpu and the Rights of 'Non-Signatories'

20 Pages Posted: 1 Mar 2021

See all articles by Alan Scott Rau

Alan Scott Rau

University of Texas at Austin - School of Law

Date Written: February 27, 2021

Abstract

The fraught question of the rights and liabilities of "non-signatories" in arbitration continues to exercise courts and commentators. The Supreme Court, as part of its endless fascination with the arbitral process, recently made its own contribution in the Outokumpu case. Outokumpu seemed to raise a wide variety of issues---the signature requirement of the New York Convention, the rights of third parties under the Convention, the relevance of "equitable estoppel," and the applicable law that governs that issue. In a dispiritingly unadventuresome opinion, a unanimous Court decided few of these---yet what the Court gives us is clearly in line with current jurisprudence and with the ALI's recent Restatement project on international commercial arbitration, This short piece was written as a contribution to a festschrift in honor of Professor George Bermann---who, in addition to his extensive body of work, has been the guiding force behind the Restatement and so instrumental in bringing it to fruition.

Keywords: arbitration, international arbitration, New York Convention, non-signatories, estoppel

JEL Classification: K12, K33, K41

Suggested Citation

Rau, Alan Scott, Outokumpu and the Rights of 'Non-Signatories' (February 27, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3794302 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3794302

Alan Scott Rau (Contact Author)

University of Texas at Austin - School of Law ( email )

727 East Dean Keeton Street
Austin, TX 78705
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
65
Abstract Views
310
Rank
618,039
PlumX Metrics