IN RE: CADWALADER (2024)

Order and judgment (same paper), Supreme Court, New York County (Richard Latin, J.), entered on or about August 17, 2023, granting the petition to proceed to arbitration and adjudging that respondents must pay their share of fees owed to the arbitration tribunal on or before September 15, 2023, unanimously modified, on the law, to deny the petition to compel respondents to pay their share of the fees owed to the arbitration tribunal, and otherwise affirmed, without costs.

The motion court had jurisdiction over respondent Brent Hocking.  Once the arbitration panel ruled that Hocking consented to the arbitration panel's jurisdiction by participating in it, the motion court had no power to review that ruling (see Mobil Oil Indonesia, Inc. v. Asamera Oil [Indonesia], 43 N.Y.2d 276, 281, 401 N.Y.S.2d 186, 372 N.E.2d 21 [1977]).  The arbitration panel's jurisdiction over Hocking conferred jurisdiction upon New York's courts (see Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Lecopulos, 553 F.2d 842, 844 [2d Cir. 1977]).

However, the motion court had no power to intervene in the arbitration panel's decision to deny petitioner's request to compel respondents to pay the $68,000 they owed in arbitration fees (see Mobil Oil Indonesia, 43 N.Y.2d at 281, 401 N.Y.S.2d 186, 372 N.E.2d 21;  Asesd, LLC v. Vanguard Constr. & Dev. Co., Inc., 79 A.D.3d 418, 910 N.Y.S.2d 907 [1st Dept. 2010];  Whitestone Constr. Co., Inc. v. Varied Constr. Corp., 118 A.D.3d 418, 419, 987 N.Y.S.2d 56 [1st Dept. 2014]).  Once the panel declined to order the payment, respondents were not required to pay their share of the fees at that juncture.  Contrary to petitioner's contention, the panel's determination that it lacked the power to seek information relevant to petitioner's request for payment of fees at that stage of the arbitration, did not render the panel's decision reviewable (see Whitestone Constr. Co., Inc., 118 A.D.3d at 419, 987 N.Y.S.2d 56).