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Is Three A Crowd?: Neutrality, Partiality And Partisanship In The Context Of Tripartite Arbitrations, Sean-Patrick Wilson, David J. Mclean

Sean-Patrick Wilson

Despite the widespread usage of party-appointed tripartite arbitration, for some time there has been confusion and concern among academics, courts, parties and arbitrators about the proper role of neutrality in tripartite structure. For example, is it legally permissible for party-appointed arbitrators to be partial? What difference, if any, exists between terms such as “partial,” “partisan” and “non-neutral”? How do we reconcile the Federal Arbitration Act’s ban on “evident partiality” with the concept of having non-neutral arbitrators? Unfortunately, neither Congress nor the Supreme Court has delineated fully the concept of neutrality of party-appointed arbitrators, and the case law among the circuit …