Judge Kenneth Karas
Global Gold Mining LLC and Global Gold Corp. petitioned to confirm part of a "partial final award" under ongoing arbitration between them and Caldera Resources Inc. The dispute arose from a joint venture agreement to mine gold in Armenia. Global Gold were U.S. based publicly held corporations and Caldera Resources was a Canadian corporation traded on the TSX Venture Exchange (a Canadian stock exchange). Caldera opposed the petition, partly arguing the arbitrator exceeded his authority when improperly reviewing the TSX decision. The court disagreed finding that the arbitrator’s ruling did not purport to review the decision of TSX; instead the arbitrator found as a fact that the TSX never approved the agreement, per the requirements of the underlying contract. The court ruled this determination had no legal effect on the TSX decision. Further the court found it irrelevant whether the arbitrator’s conclusions surrounding the TSX decision were correct because the Second Circuit had said that the question whether an issue was correctly decided did not bear on whether the arbitrator was within its power to decide it. Upon further review, the court granted the petition and confirmed the substance of the arbitration order.
