Arbitration: This is Not the Way It’s Supposed Happen
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently released an opinion with a bizarre set of facts, Thomas Kinkade Co., et al. v. White, et al., 2:09-cv-10757 (6th Cir. Apr. 2, 2013). This case concerns a federal court review of an arbitration involving a business dispute between Thomas Kinkade Co. and one of its art dealers, the Whites. The Sixth Circuit succinctly stated that the “arbitration itself was a model of how not to conduct one.” The circumstances of the arbitration are sorted and full of irregularities, including the following: During the arbitration, counsel for the Whites surreptitiously sent a live feed of the proceedings to disgruntled former employee in a hotel room to assist with the case. The arbitration panel refused to grant Kinkade any relief for the White’s outright failure to respond to pre-arbitration discovery. The panel, over Kinkade’s objections, allowed the Whites after the arbitration to submit further […]
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