57th & 6th Ground LLC v. Carnegie House Tenants Corp. (Ground-Rent Arbitration Award Vacated for Arbitrator Non-Disclosure)
New York's Appellate Division, First Department unanimously vacated a $24 million ground-rent arbitration award against the Carnegie House cooperative on West 57th Street, finding the panel's neutral umpire had privately discussed a paid appointment as umpire in a separate arbitration with the landowner's counsel and omitted that contact from his disclosure while the arbitration was pending. The reversal overturns a January 2026 trial court decision that had confirmed the award under CPLR Article 75's demanding standard for vacatur, sending the ground-rent reset to a new arbitration panel.
Why it matters
Shows that even New York's 'very heavy burden of proof' standard for vacating an arbitration award cannot save a result tainted by an arbitrator's undisclosed financial or professional dealings with a party's counsel, a risk relevant to any high-value CRE arbitration, including ground-lease resets, mezzanine-loan valuation disputes, and joint-venture buyouts that route around the courts.
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