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Search To Clarify An Elusive Standard: What Relationships Between Arbitrator And Party Demonstrate Evident Partiality - Anr Coal Co. V. Cogentrix Of North Carolina, Inc., The, Jennifer C. Bailey

Journal of Dispute Resolution

In Commonwealth Coatings Corp. v. Continental Casualty Co.,3 the Supreme Court adopted a standard to determine and define an arbitrator's evident partiality in arbitration proceedings. Lower courts have relied on the Court's treatment of the issue, but this reliance has proved problematic, and led to both federal and state courts adopting inconsistent standards of evident partiality. This Casenote will examine the problems of Commonwealth, its impact on the standards of arbitrator partiality over the past thirty years, its continuing influence on the recent Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in ANR Coal Co. v. Cogentrix of North Carolina, Inc., and …