Azteca Construction, Inc. v. ADR Consulting, Inc.

Opinion

BUTZ, J.

This case requires us to resolve a conflict between the rules of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and the provisions of the California Arbitration Act (the Act) (Code Civ. Proc., § 1280 et seq.) 1 pertaining to the disqualification of a proposed neutral arbitrator based on pre-arbitration disclosures that might affect his or her impartiality.

The parties here agreed to private arbitration in accordance with the AAA’s then entitled “Construction Industry Dispute Resolution [Rules and] Procedures” (hereafter AAA Rules). Those rules included a provision which stated that…