The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York recently denied a motion to reconsider its prior confirmation of a “multihundred-million-dollar” arbitration award by a Chinese arbitration panel. In the underlying arbitration, the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), the Chinese arbitral authority, issued the award after attempting three separate times to provide notice of the arbitration to the respondent. Mailed notice was sent to three different addresses, including the address designated in the relevant agreement, as well as two other addresses known to be associated with the respondent. Ultimately, the respondent appeared at the arbitration, which yielded a large award against it.

In a prior ruling, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the petitioner confirming the Chinese arbitration award pursuant to the provisions of the New York Convention. The respondent moved for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), which permits “a party to seek relief from a final judgment, and request reopening of his case, under a limited set of circumstances,” including where the judgment is based on “mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.” The respondent argued the judgment should be set aside because he never received proper notice of the arbitration.

The court declined the respondent’s invitation. While the New York Convention permits non-enforcement of a foreign arbitral award where proper notice was not provided, the notice does not have to meet the requirements of the federal rules. Instead, notice is required only to be sufficient to afford due process. “Because the due process inquiry is limited to determining whether the procedure used was fundamentally unfair, it often demands less than” the federal rules or the applicable arbitration agreement.

Here, the court found the procedures used by CIETAC to provide the respondent with notice were reasonable under the circumstances and sufficient to afford due process. This finding was buttressed by the fact that the respondent actually participated in the arbitration despite the reported difficulties in obtaining service. The arbitration panel’s attempts to provide service via multiple mailings to addresses known to be associated with the respondent met “the relatively low burden imposed by due process.”

Huzhou Chuangtai Rongyuan Investment Management Partnership v. Qin, No. 1:21-cv-09221 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2023).