Connecticut Supreme Court—denial of vacatur for arbitral award (Iftikar Ahmed v Oak Management Corporation)

Article summary

Arbitration analysis: Iftikar Ahmed (‘Ahmed’) was an employee of Oak Management Corporation (‘Oak’). Oak dismissed Ahmed from his employment after he was indicted for insider trading. Subsequently, Oak commenced an arbitration against Ahmed for breach of his employment contract. Ahmed fled from the US to India and used his absence as a pretext to argue that he was impeded from participating in the arbitration. The arbitration proceeded nonetheless and the sole arbitrator eventually decided to dismiss Ahmed’s counterclaims and strike his defenses by applying the equitable ‘fugitive disentitlement doctrine’. After a damages hearing that Ahmed did not attend, an arbitral award for c.$57m was issued in Oak’s favor. The Connecticut trial court dismissed Ahmed’s motion to have the award vacated and he appealed. The Connecticut Supreme Court dismissed this appeal holding that the arbitrator was entitled to apply the ‘fugitive disentitlement doctrine’ and declining to find any lack of due process. Written by Alex Wilbraham, Solicitor England &...