Supreme Court Rules Narrowly on Foreign Arbitration Awards (1)

The US Supreme Court revived a more than $500 million arbitration award involving two Indian companies, saying that the lower federal court was wrong to impose additional requirements not in the statute.

Writing for a unanimous court Thursday, Justice Samuel Alito said the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act doesn’t require a showing of a connection to the US in order to justify intervention by US courts.

Instead, the statute requires only that a court has subject matter jurisdiction, which is provided by the statute, and that service was proper. After those two requirements are met, “personal jurisdiction over a foreign sovereign ...