Enforcement Action), CBF sought both to enforce the Award and to assert various state law fraud claims relating to the underlying dispute. The District Court dismissed the Enforcement Action, in relevant part, because: (i) the Award had not been first confirmed by a court of competent jurisdiction; and (ii) the fraud claims were barred by the doctrine of issue preclusion (sometimes called "collateral estoppel") because the ICC tribunal had denied similar claims asserted in the Arbitration. The Second Circuit Reverses On appeal, the Second Circuit vacated the District Court's judgment on two grounds: (i) the lower court erred by requiring an award debtor to bring a confirmation action at the seat prior to enforcement in a secondary jurisdiction; (ii) CBF's fraud claims were not barred by the doctrine of collateral estoppel. The Court's analysis is devoted in large part to three matters of considerable interest and import for practitioners: 1. No Requirement to Confirm Award at Seat, and Other Guidance to Lower Courts The Second Circuit identified and reversed the obvious and puzzling error behind the District Court's refusal to enforce a foreign arbitral award for failure to achieve confirmation at the seat. The Second Circuit explained that the New York Convention was devised largely to "eradicate" the old double exequatur requirement, which mandated confirmation at the seat as a precondition to the enforcement of arbitral awards abroad. Under the Convention, as implemented by Chapter Two of the Federal Arbitration Act, CBF needed only to commence a summary, singlestep proceeding to achieve recognition and enforcement of the Award in a U.S. court. Accordingly, the District Court had erred by requiring confirmation at the seat as a condition of enforcement. However, recognizing persistent "confusion" in the area, the Second Circuit used the opportunity to clarify "the components of and process for [the enforcement of] a
nondomestic arbitral award." The Court's efforts are valuable in three respects. First, it provides a useful summary of the differences between domestic, nondomestic, and foreign awards and the varying extent courts' oversight with respect to each category. Second, the Court clarified that the meaning of "confirmation" under Chapter Two of the FAA is coextensive with "recognition and enforcement" under the New York Convention. This is distinct from the meaning of "confirmation" under Chapter One of the FAA, which denotes the process whereby a U.S. court converts an award over which it has primary jurisdiction into a judgment of its own. Third, in summarizing these first principles, the Court referred extensively to the draft Restatement (Third) of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration. This is an important signal that, at least in the Second Circuit, the forthcoming Restatement will achieve its desired status as a highlypersuasive authority in the field of international arbitration. 2. Law of the Enforcing Forum Determines Award's VeilPiercing Effects Appellees were not named in the Award, a fact giving rise to difficult questions of veilpiercing at the enforcement stage. The Second Circuit confirmed that the enforcement of a New York Convention award against purported affiliates or alter egos of the respondent falls to be decided under the law of the secondary jurisdiction. Accordingly, the liability of Appellees for satisfaction of the Award would be determined under the applicable law in the Southern District of New York. The Second Circuit remanded the case back to the District Court for further legal and factual inquiries on the question of veilpiercing and alter ego liability.