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A Federal District Court in Ohio has denied a motion to confirm an arbitration award after the arbitrator issued a clarification "that was meant to replace" the original reward.
In MJCM, LLC v. Intellishops LLC, No. 3:07CV01011, 2007 WL 1452730 (N.D. Ohio 2007), MJCM – a competitor of defendant Intellishops – sought to confirm an arbitration award that required it to give "copies" of certain materials to Intellishops.
MJCM, not wishing to reveal proprietary information, interpreted this to mean "hard copies." Intellishops thought the copies should come in an electronic format, and petitioned the arbitrator of clarification.
MJCM argued that the "clarification" was in fact an illegal "reconsideration;" the Court disagreed. That the term "copies" was ambiguous was essentially proven by the fact that the arbitrator himself changed his mind about its meaning when asked to clarify.
Because the clarification "replaced" the award that MJCM was seeking to have enforced, there was in essence nothing before the Court to be enforced, and the motion to confirm was denied. However, the Court noted that the action was denied without prejudice so that MJCM could seek to enforce the "clarified" award.
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