Alan Van Praag
Senior Partner at Eaton & Van Winkle, LLP, New York, NY, U.S.A.

As long as an arbitral award arises out of a relationship which involves property located abroad, envisages performance or enforcement abroad, or has some other reasonable relation with one or more foreign states, then the arbitral award shall be recognized and enforced under the terms of the NY Convention. The Convention is the legal tool employed to confirm an arbitration award relating to a licensing agreement rendered in a foreign forum and converted it into a U.S. judgment enforceable in any state of the United States, whether the award is rendered in the United States or elsewhere. A complimentary Act for domestic and maritime arbitration disputes is the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). This Act established a national policy favoring arbitrating and enforcing awards that arise from this action. An important example of an arbitration award dispute in a licensing case is Yusef Ahmed Alghanim v. Toys R Us. This was a dispute involving both the NY convention and the FAA. This will be discussed in more detail later in the paper.