Tennessee high court hears dispute over whether state law or parties—ontract decides where arbitration awards can be confirmed

Nashville

Attorneys, an amicus from the Tennessee attorney general—s office and justices questioned at length on whether Tennessee courts had subject-matter jurisdiction to confirm an arbitration award when the parties— contract specified arbitration outside Tennessee.

The issue came into focus when Ryan Williams, attorney for appellant Berkeley Research Group, told the court, "We stand here today on the cusp of what could be extremely dangerous precedent if this court were to interpret section 3 27 b of the ..." and argued that read narrowly the statute could render a private arbitration award a nullity by permitting repeated collateral attacks across states.

Why it matters: the dispute could affect where arbitration awards are enforced when parties pick neutral or out-of-state forums, a frequent practice in multistate commercial disputes. The panel tested competing interpretations of provisions of Tennessee—s Uniform Arbitration Act (the prior version and the revised RUAA), the interplay with the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), and the effect of party-selected rules (JAMS) that the parties included in their contract.

What the lawyers argued

Williams, representing Berkeley Research Group (BRG), argued that the statutory provision governing confirmation (identified in briefing as section 3-23 under the current…