Arbitration award confirmed

The confirmation of an arbitration award in a construction dispute was affirmed in Petrofac, Inc. v. DynMcDermott Petroleum Operations Co., No. 11-20141 (July 17, 2012).  The Court found: (1) that the arbitrator had authority, based on the parties’ agreement to AAA rules, to determine whether a particular damages issue was arbitrable; (2) the award was not procured by fraud, rejecting an argument that the claimant’s damage calculation involved a “bait-and-switch” that pretended to abandon one theory; and (3)  the district court properly awarded prejudgment interest, particularly in light of the arbitration panel creating “a thirty-day interest-free window from the date of the award” for payment.