Norman Intertrade Ltd. v. Koo

Background

Norman Intertrade Ltd. and Bon-Woong Koo and the estate of Cha-Hong Koo entered international arbitration over a promissory loan and a deed of guarantee and indemnity. The arbitrator later issued a consent award directing the Koo Parties to pay Norman Intertrade $2,190,063 in scheduled installments. The Koo Parties completed the first nine payments but did not make the final payment of $295,295.

Norman Intertrade petitioned under 9 U.S.C. § 207 for confirmation of the foreign arbitration award. The Koo Parties did not appear in the federal case, and the opinion states that they did not oppose confirmation. Norman Intertrade separately moved for default judgment and sought additional amounts, including interest, attorneys’ fees, and costs.

Confirmation of the Arbitration Award

The court applied Chapter Two of the Federal Arbitration Act and the New York Convention. It determined that the award fell under the Convention because the Koo Parties were citizens of Korea and Norman Intertrade was registered in the British Virgin Islands. Under the governing standard, a court must confirm a foreign arbitration award unless the party resisting enforcement establishes one of the Convention’s defenses.

Because the Koo Parties did not oppose confirmation, the court found that they had not met their burden to show that a defense applied. The court therefore granted the petition to confirm the final arbitration award. The court emphasized that confirmation proceedings do not ordinarily involve reconsideration of the arbitration’s underlying merits.

Default Judgment and Attorneys’ Fees

The court did not decide Norman Intertrade’s motion for default judgment. Instead, it deferred ruling on that motion until Norman Intertrade supplied additional information concerning its billing records. Norman Intertrade requested $108,608.50 in attorneys’ fees for 93.7 hours of work. The court questioned billing entries reflecting hourly rates above $1,000 and work on issues that appeared to have been unopposed.

The court directed Norman Intertrade, within 14 days, to file a statement providing citations to similar unopposed foreign-arbitration enforcement matters, the hours and rates in those matters, the fees awarded, a detailed explanation of the work performed in this case and why it was not duplicative, and any proposed revisions to the pending fee request.

Disposition

Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. granted the petition to confirm the final arbitration award and deferred ruling on the motion for default judgment. The opinion did not state that the court granted or denied the default-judgment motion.