Originally from American Review of International Arbitration - ARIA

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Over several decades, the federal policy favoring arbitration created a
consistent judicial practice that unequivocally supported the enforceability of
arbitral awards.1 The force and clarity of judicial deference, however, were
lessened when courts began minimizing the specialty of labor arbitration and
incorporated the so-called common-law grounds into the enforcement regime
under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) § 10.2 Manifest disregard of the law
soon became the weapon of choice for disgruntled parties to confound the federal
policy favoring arbitration and erect pro forma challenges to awards that, in
reality, were free of defects.3 By definition, manifest disregard permitted courts to
examine the arbitrator’s reasoning on the law and thereby to exert control over
the substance of arbitrator determinations.4 Blanket judicial deference, therefore,
was qualified and courts could invite themselves onto the privileged turf of the
arbitrators’ jurisdiction.
Stealth appeals against arbitral awards continued apace and were reinforced
by new doctrinal inventions. The right to seek the clarification of opaque or
poorly worded awards was one such device.5 It was originally reserved for courts
that were stymied by the incomprehensible language of an award. They could not