The latest Supreme Court “judgment” with respect to the manifest disregard of the law doctrine in connection with motions to vacate arbitration awards was an anticlimactic denial of certiorari in Walia v. Dewan, a classic manifest disregard case originating in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.1 The odyssey is set forth below.
Background
In the prologue to the odyssey was the departure from a lack of acceptance of arbitration. This occurred when Congress passed the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), creating a policy in favor of arbitration with respect to commercial disputes involving commerce with only four limited grounds of review of arbitral awards.2 This created a tension between the lack of substantive judicial review and the judicial desire to retain control of judgments issued by the courts. Out of this tension sprang, straight from the Supreme Court, Wilko v. Swan.3
