The Southern District of New York issued an opinion and order on May 22, 2023, dismissing a parties' Petition to Vacate an arbitral award as untimely.
Although the petitioner argued that the time to move to vacate had not started to run because he had “neither received a copy of the Award by mail nor been personally served with a copy of the Award," the Court pointed out that the argument is based on overruled precedent.
The Court explained:
While it is true that this Court previously held that, per Rule 39(f), Section 12 of the FAA’s three-month service period for a petition to vacate an AAA award was not triggered until the petitioner received the AAA’s award by personal service or mail, Salus Cap. Partners, LLC v. Moser, 289 F. Supp. 3d 468, 476 (S.D.N.Y. 2018), that decision (and the other decisions cited by [Petitioner]) preceded the Second Circuit’s recent opinion in Dalla-Longa, 33 F.4th at 696. Dalla-Longa similarly involved a petition to a vacate an AAA employment arbitration award, and there, the Second Circuit clearly stated that the three-month service period under Section 12 of the FAA began to run when the AAA award was issued. See id. (providing that, because “the arbitration award was issued on September 9, 2019,” the petitioner “thus had until December 9, 2019, to properly serve notice of any motion or petition to vacate the award”). In accordance with that ruling, courts in this Circuit, including this Court, have subsequently held that Section 12 of the FAA’s three-month service clock starts when an award is issued, not when it is legally served upon the parties to the arbitration. See e.g., Moster v. Credit Suisse Sec. (USA) LLC, No. 22 Civ. 999 (NRB), 2022 WL 4467626, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 25, 2022) (“[I]t is undisputed that the ‘clock’ for the three-month period for service of the petition began ticking the day the award was issued.”); Gross v. HSBC Bank USA, N.A., No. 21 Civ. 8636 (PAC), 2022 WL 2967630, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. July 27, 2022) (“Under the FAA, a losing party has three months following the issuance of an award to move to vacate or modify the award.”); Kaplan v. Merrill Lynch Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc., No. 22 Civ. 1333 (ER), 2022 WL 2110391 at *3 (S.D.N.Y. June 10, 2022) (noting that three-month service period under Section 12 of the FAA began to run on the date the award was issued).The opinion can be dowloaded below.