ABSTRACT

The United States is generally perceived as adopting a progressive approach to international arbitration.15 Interestingly, however, there is no provision in the United States Federal Arbitration Act 1925 (hereafter the Federal Arbitration Act) allowing provisional remedies to be granted by the courts when the parties have agreed to arbitration.16 The absence of a federal statutory determination on the availability of court-ordered provisional remedies in aid of arbitration has led to an ad hoc, state-by-state development of this area of the law. Indeed, there is a general reluctance among the United States judiciary to interfere with an arbitration once it has been initiated.17 Newman and Nelson comment that, ‘[t]o the extent that court remedies are available in support of arbitration, they are most often available before the arbitrators have been appointed, or after the making of the award’.18 Courts will ordinarily not grant interim relief unless the arbitrators are unable to provide it.19 Support for this approach is found in the extensive powers vested in arbitrators in the United States.20 Consequently, the judicial treatment of arbitrable disputes in the United States can be categorised as non-interventionist.