Fotochrome, Inc. v. Copal Co., Ltd.

• Decision Date: 29 May 1975
• Docket Number: D,No. 568,568
• Citation: 517 F.2d 512
• Parties: FOTOCHROME, INC., Debtor-Appellant, v. COPAL COMPANY, LIMITED, Claimant-Appellee. ocket 74-2082.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 512

517 F.2d 512

FOTOCHROME, INC., Debtor-Appellant, v. COPAL COMPANY, LIMITED, Claimant-Appellee.

No. 568, Docket 74-2082.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued Jan. 30, 1975.

Decided May 29, 1975.

Raymond F. Gregory, New York City, for debtor-appellant.

Dugald Campbell Brown, New York City (Whitman & Ransom, William M. Kahn and Gillard S. Glover, New York City, of counsel), for claimant-appellee.

Before OAKES and GURFEIN, Circuit Judges, and TENNEY, District Judge. ^*

GURFEIN, Circuit Judge:

The parties to this appeal present some interesting questions concerning the impact of the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards ("the Convention") ¹ upon the provisions of the Bankruptcy Act. We find that there is no conflict between the Convention and the Act on the facts of this case. We accordingly affirm the order of Judge Weinstein, 377 F.Supp. 26 (E.D.N.Y.1974), which held that a Bankruptcy Court does not have the power in a Chapter XI arrangement to relitigate the merits of a contract dispute which has been resolved by binding arbitration in a foreign forum, commenced before the filing of the Chapter XI petition and concluded thereafter by an arbitral award in the foreign country.

Fotochrome, Inc. ("Fotochrome"), a Delaware corporation with offices in the Eastern District of New York, and Copal Company, Ltd. ("Copal"), a Japanese corporation, neither present nor doing business in the United States, entered into a contract in 1966 under which Copal would manufacture cameras in Japan according to specifications provided by Fotochrome, and Fotochrome would purchase the cameras for distribution in the United States. A dispute arose in which each party charged the other with failure to abide by the terms of the contract. Copal claimed damages of $631,501 for Fotochrome's breach of conditions in the contract and its failure to pay for delivered cameras; Fotochrome claimed damages of $828,582 for Copal's failure to meet the delivery schedule and for its manufacture of defective cameras.

The parties had agreed in their contract that final settlement of any disputes arising out of the contract would be reached by arbitration in Tokyo, Japan. In 1967, Copal filed a petition for arbitration with the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association ("JCAA"); Fotochrome filed a formal answer on July 31, 1967. The first of seventeen arbitral sessions was held by the JCAA on December 21, 1967. Fotochrome participated with Japanese counsel in all sessions except the last. Copal presented its evidence in sixteen sessions over the course of twenty-five months.

At the fourteenth session on October 1, 1969, Fotochrome's counsel asked to be allowed to examine two witnesses on his client's behalf. The tribunal scheduled examinations on October 31 and November 5, but the witnesses were not produced. Sessions were rescheduled for December 4 and, later, for January 27, but on each occasion, Fotochrome failed to produce its witnesses. On January 27, 1970 the arbitrators informed Fotochrome's counsel that if the witnesses did not appear at the next session, the arbitration might be terminated. The session was scheduled for March 31.

On March 26, 1970 Fotochrome filed a petition for an arrangement under Chapter XI of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., in the Eastern District of New York. Referee Sherman Warner issued an order on March 27 continuing Fotochrome as debtor in possession and enjoining "all creditors of the debtor . . . from commencing or continuing any actions, suits, arbitrations, or the enforcement of any claim in any Court against this debtor. . . ." (Emphasis supplied.) The restraining order, in terms, applied only to creditors, not to the debtor in possession. In any event, Fotochrome did not seek the court's permission to continue to participate in the JCAA arbitration, although it knew it was scheduled to present its case in Tokyo four days later.

On March 31, at the JCAA arbitral session, counsel for Fotochrome notified the tribunal that the petition had been filed in the United States District Court and that the stay had issued. He did not present the two witnesses as scheduled. On April 8, Fotochrome's counsel informed the JCAA that he had been discharged by his client. On April 9, the JCAA panel convened to consider the effect of Fotochrome's withdrawal and the stay order of the United States District Court. Copal urged the tribunal to proceed. On July 2, the tribunal decided that the bankruptcy court's stay was not effective with respect to it, and ordered the sessions terminated.

On September 18, the arbitral panel issued an award in favor of Copal in the amount of $624,457.80, plus interest from January 1, 1967. The tribunal resolved both Copal's claim and Fotochrome's counterclaim, which it dismissed, considering evidence supplied by both parties; it was unable, of course, to consider evidence that might have been supplied by the two witnesses Fotochrome had intended to present.

On October 21, Copal filed the arbitral award with the Tokyo District Court. As of that time, under Article 800 of the Japan Code of Civil Procedure, the award became in effect a final and conclusive judgment settling the rights and obligations of the parties in Japan.

On October 22, Copal filed a proof of claim in Fotochrome's bankruptcy proceedings in the amount of the arbitral award. Apparently in the belief that the Referee's stay would operate to bar proceedings to enforce the Japanese award in this country, Copal did not seek confirmation of the Japanese judgment either in the New York courts under the Act for the Recognition of Foreign Money Judgments, CPLR §§ 5301-09, or in a federal court under the Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 9, or the Convention, 9 U.S.C. § 207.

Fotochrome, as debtor in possession, challenged the claim presented to the Bankruptcy Court, and requested a hearing on the merits of Copal's underlying claim. Referee Parente, after a preliminary hearing, held that the Japanese award could not be treated as a final judgment in the bankruptcy proceeding and that the bankruptcy court would reconsider the merits of the underlying dispute. The Referee reasoned that under Section 2a(15) of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C. § 11a(15), the restraining order of March 27 "effectively imposed (the Bankruptcy Court's) paramount authority over the estate of the debtor in possession ousting the jurisdiction of the Japan CAA." He ruled that the Japanese arbitral award, obtained after the filing of the petition for an arrangement, without authority of the Bankruptcy Court, was not binding on the debtor in possession and could be reopened for consideration on the merits in the Chapter XI proceeding.

Judge Weinstein reversed the Referee's order, holding that the restraining order of the Bankruptcy Court had no extraterritorial effect as such, Japan not being within the territorial limits subject to the jurisdiction of the Bankruptcy Court, Section 2a of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C. § 11(a), and because Copal did not have the requisite minimum contacts with the United States to render it subject to the in personam jurisdiction of the Bankruptcy Court; that the award was a final judgment under Japanese law; and that the provisions of the bilateral treaty on Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the United States and Japan (the "Japanese Treaty") ² and the Convention entitled Copal to seek confirmation of its award as a judgment in the United States. ³

The New York and federal statutes and the Convention provide for two stages: recognition of the award and its enforcement. CPLR § 5303; 9 U.S.C §§ 9, 13; Convention, Art. III. The award itself is inchoate until enforced by judgment. Under the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. §§ 9 to 11, the enforcement of an arbitration award is subject to certain limited defenses. That is true, as well, under the New York CPLR §§ 5304, 5305, and the Convention, Art. V. The United Nations Convention further provides that recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award may be refused if the competent authority in the country where recognition and enforcement is sought finds that the recognition or enforcement of the award is contrary to the public policy of the country. Art. V, 2(b).

We note at the outset that there is no reference to bankruptcy in the Convention. Nor is there any reference to whether the "public policy" of the forum state to require equal treatment of creditors in the case of bankruptcy is the kind of "public policy" that allows non-recognition of foreign arbitral awards. "The legislative history of the provision offers no certain guidelines to its construction." See Parsons & Whittemore Overseas Co., Inc. v. Societe General de L'Industrie Du Papier (Rakta), 508 F.2d 969, 973 (2 Cir. 1974).

The public policy in favor of international arbitration is strong. Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U.S. 506, 94 S.Ct. 2449, 41 L.Ed.2d 270 (1974); Island Territory of Curacao v. Solitron Devices, Inc., 489 F.2d 1313 (2 Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 986, 94 S.Ct. 2389, 40 L.Ed.2d 763 (1974). And we have recently indicated that the "public policy" limitation on the Convention is to be construed narrowly to be applied only where enforcement would violate the forum state's most basic notions of morality and justice. Parsons & Whittemore, supra, 508 F.2d at 974.

As we shall see, this appeal can be decided without the necessity of determining whether the Bankruptcy Act involves a "public policy" which is contrary to enforcement of arbitral awards under the Convention.

The questions that arise on this appeal are: (1) Is a foreign arbitral award rendered after the filing of a Chapter XI petition in the United States Bankruptcy Court nevertheless a valid determination on the merits? (2) If it is, what is the domestic "competent authority" to consider the limited defenses against its enforcement, the...