{"id":903995,"date":"2025-02-20T14:19:20","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T21:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=903995"},"modified":"2025-02-20T14:19:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T21:19:22","slug":"arbitration-forum-not-integral-to-parties-subcontract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/arbitration-forum-not-integral-to-parties-subcontract\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arbitration Club\u2026\u00a0Is Not So Exclusive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Daniel Lund III | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lexology.com\/library\/detail.aspx?g=9c9f66ee-67e7-43c1-aa85-8b53ff442241&amp;utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&amp;utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&amp;utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&amp;utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2025-02-11&amp;utm_term=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Phelps Dunbar<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What happens when your designated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/arbitration-forum-dispute-does-not-necessarily-breach-contract-nor-waive-arbitration-right\/\">arbitration forum<\/a> is no longer available?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plaintiff entered a subcontract in 2017 for an oil-and-gas project, which included an arbitration clause referring disputes to arbitration under the rules of Dubai International Financial Centre\u2019s joint partnership with the London Court of International Arbitration, a\/k\/a the DIFC-LCIA Arbitration Centre. However, in 2021, the DIFC-LCIA was abolished and replaced by the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC). When a dispute under the subcontract arose, plaintiff sought to compel arbitration, but the federal district court in New Orleans denied the motion, citing the non-existence of the designated forum. An appeal followed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, leaning on the fact that the arbitration clause did not clearly designate the DIFC-LCIA as the exclusive arbitration forum. Instead, the appellate court found that the primary intent of the parties was to arbitrate disputes, not to designate an exclusive forum:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAn arbitrator designation is integral to the agreement only if the parties \u2018unambiguously expressed their intent not to arbitrate their disputes in the event that the designated arbitral forum is unavailable.\u2019\u2026 In other words, a court will decline to appoint a substitute arbitrator only if the parties\u2019 choice of forum is \u2018so central to the arbitration agreement that the unavailability of that arbitrator [brings] the agreement to an end.\u2019\u2026 Where the parties\u2019 dominant purpose was to arbitrate generally, the designation of a particular forum is not integral to the contract, and the forum-selection clause is severable from the rest of the contract.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of its decision, the appellate court considered that the DIAC, as the successor to the DIFC-LCIA, is functionally similar and capable of administering arbitrations under the same rules. Eventually on that topic, however, the court wrote: \u201cAgain, however, we need not decide whether the DIFC-LCIA is unavailable as a forum because we conclude [earlier in our written decision] that any forum-selection clause designating the DIFCLCIA is not integral to the parties\u2019 subcontract.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cases.justia.com\/federal\/appellate-courts\/ca5\/23-30827\/23-30827-2025-01-27.pdf?ts=1738024215\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Baker Hughes Saudi Arabia Co. v. Dynamic Indus., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 1752 (5th Cir. Jan. 27, 2025)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When one of your cases is in need of a construction expert, estimates, insurance appraisal or umpire services in defect or insurance disputes &#8211; please call Advise &amp; Consult, Inc. at 888.684.8305, or email <a href=\"mailto:experts@adviseandconsult.net\">experts@adviseandconsult.net<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daniel Lund III | Phelps Dunbar What happens when your designated arbitration forum is no longer available?\u00a0 Plaintiff entered a subcontract in 2017 for an oil-and-gas project, which included an arbitration clause referring disputes to arbitration under the rules of Dubai International Financial Centre\u2019s joint partnership with the London Court of International Arbitration, a\/k\/a the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/arbitration-forum-not-integral-to-parties-subcontract\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Arbitration Club\u2026\u00a0Is Not So Exclusive<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[41],"tags":[9895,42],"class_list":["post-903995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arbitration","tag-advise-consult","tag-arbitration-2","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Arbitration Club\u2026\u00a0Is Not So Exclusive - Advise &amp; 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