
UNITED STATES 27 April 2023 The Pointe on Westshore
United States District Court, Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, 27 April 2023, Case No: 8:22-cv-2478-KKM-SPF
(The Pointe On Westshore, LLC v. ... Read more
United States District Court, Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, 27 April 2023, Case No: 8:22-cv-2478-KKM-SPF
(The Pointe On Westshore, LLC v. Certain Underwriters of Lloyd’s London Subscribing to Policy Number AMR-65342, et al.)
UNITED STATES 27 April 2023 The Pointe on Westshore
The Court granted the motion to compel arbitration of an insurance dispute. the defendants moved to compel arbitration for two reasons. First, they argued that the arbitration clause delegated all threshold questions of arbitrability to the arbitrator. Second, they argued that the arbitration clause required the Court to compel arbitration. The Court denied the first argument, finding that the wording of the arbitration clause at issue did not contain “clear and unmistakable evidence” that the parties agreed to a delegation provision, and adding that it could not assume that this was the parties’ intention. Accordingly, the Court proceeded to examine whether the dispute should be referred to arbitration, and concluded that it should, because all the four jurisdictional requirements for compelling arbitration under the New York Convention were met: there was an arbitration agreement in writing between the parties, providing for arbitration in a Convention signatory (the United States) and arising out of a commercial legal relationship, and at least one of the parties was not a US citizen.
The court discusses the principle of competence-competence, including whether the parties “intended to have arbitrability decided by an arbitrator”, and the separability of the arbitration agreement from the main contract.