quinn emanuel
quinn emanuel urquhart & sullivan, llp | business litigation report
INSIDE
Discovery Challenges
in International Criminal
Investigations
Page 4
Practice Area Updates:
Insurance Litigation Update
Page 6
EU Litigation Update
Page 6
Life Sciences Litigation
Update
Page 8
Preliminary Injunction Victory
Over U.S. Treasury
and Other Victories
Page 10
Attorney Advertising
November 2015
los angeles | new york | san francisco | silicon valley | chicago | washington, d.c. | houston | seattle
tokyo | london | mannheim | hamburg | munich | paris | moscow | hong kong | sydney | brussels
(continued on page 2)
Deciding Who Decides Questions of Arbitrability: A Survey of American Law
and a Comparative Perspective
Parties to commercial disputes frequently encounter
and litigate the threshold issue whether their dispute
is within the scope of an arbitration clause and must
therefore be arbitrated rather than litigated in court.
Even before this threshold issue may be decided,
however, there is a more fundamental question:
Who gets to decide whether a dispute is subject to
arbitration—a court, or the arbitration panel itself?
American courts have struggled with the question
for decades—and the struggle continues. Other
jurisdictions have a much more straightforward
approach.
American Approach
Enactment of the FAA and Presumption of Arbitrability
In the United States, the Federal Arbitration Act
requires federal district courts to stay judicial
proceedings or compel arbitration as long as the parties
have a valid agreement to arbitrate that encompasses
their dispute. 9 U.S.C. §§ 3, 4. However, the Act
does not address whether, or when, the question of
arbitrability should be decided by the arbitration
panel rather than the court.
Passed by Congress in 1924, the Act reversed
more than a century of American common law
reecting traditional English hostility to arbitration
Quinn Emanuel Named “Global Investigations Firm of the
Year” by
Global Investigations Review
On September 24, 2015, Quinn Emanuel was named “Global Investigations Firm
of the Year” by Global Investigations Review (GIR), the leading publication covering
global white-collar investigations. GIR recognized the rm for its role in several major
white collar matters, including the rm’s representation of FIFA in connection with
the Department of Justice’s wide-ranging investigation of professional soccer; success
in securing a non-prosecution agreement for BSI, the rst Swiss nancial institution to
obtain such an agreement under the DOJ’s Swiss bank amnesty program; preliminary
injunction victory on behalf of Tanzanian bank FBME against the U.S. Department of
Treasury; and FCPA trial victory on behalf of Joseph Sigelman.
Kathleen M. Sullivan Named Lifetime Achievement Award
Recipient by the
New York Law Journal
New York partner Kathleen Sullivan has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement
Award by the New York Law Journal as part of its 2015 focus on “Lawyers Who Lead
by Example.” ese awards recognize true leaders—attorneys who have consistently
risen to the top and elevated the legal profession. Ms. Sullivan was recognized for her
lengthy service on the faculty of two prestigious law schools, Harvard and Stanford,
as well as her groundbreaking work as Dean of Stanford Law School, and her work
as a leading appellate advocate in private practice. e publication also cited her role
as the rst and still only female name partner among the Am Law 100 law rms and
her potential candidacy for the U.S. Supreme Court. According to the New York Law
Journal, colleagues say “[s]he is great to work with, very smart, unfailingly gracious,
superb in court and an all-around outstanding member of the bar” and that “[s]he’s
mastered and conquered the world of academia, and she mastered and conquered the
world of litigation too.”
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