Al-Haddad Commodities Corp. v. Toepfer International Asia Pte., Ltd.
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
485 F. Supp. 2d 677 (2007)
- Written by Tammy Boggs, JD
Facts
Al-Haddad Commodities Corp. (ACC) (plaintiff) entered a contract to purchase rice from Toepfer International Asia Pte., Ltd. (Toepfer) (defendant) and have the rice shipped from the United States to Iraq. Toepfer was unable to ship the rice by the set contract deadline due to an inability to secure a shipping vessel. Pursuant to the parties’ contract, ACC initiated arbitration against Toepfer before the U.S. Rice Millers Association (RMA). The RMA set the hearing 11 weeks out, for December 12, 2006, in Houston, Texas, and refused to reschedule the date despite Toepfer’s request for more time to conduct discovery. Toepfer’s counsel was in England, and the parties’ contract was governed by English law. The arbitration panel ordered expert opinions on the topic of English law to be submitted by a date in early December 2006. Both Toepfer and ACC proffered expert opinions after that date. The panel nonetheless admitted all the opinions in evidence. ACC’s counsel requested in advance that Sahib Al-Haddad, ACC’s president, be allowed to testify via video conference due to unspecified health issues. The panel agreed. Later, because there was no video-conferencing capability, the panel allowed Al-Haddad to testify telephonically under direct and cross-examination. Al-Haddad’s testimony was duplicative of other evidence. The main dispute in the case was whether Toepfer’s nondelivery of rice was excused by ACC’s failure to obtain a bank guarantee for demurrage, or costs associated with delays in unloading. The arbitration panel ruled in ACC’s favor, finding that Toepfer had waived ACC’s breach by failing to timely load and ship the rice. In district court, ACC moved to confirm the award, and Toepfer moved to vacate the award based primarily on grounds of arbitrator misconduct.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Doumar, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 815,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.