The courts undoubtedly have the power to grant provisional remedies in aid of a pending arbitration – including temporary restraining orders, preliminary injunctions, and attachments. As a recent Fifth Circuit decision reminds us, the courts also can grant such remedies in aid of an arbitration that has yet to be commenced. Indeed, those remedies may be available under state law, even if the future arbitration is governed by the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the “Convention”), and even if the arbitration will be sited in a state other than the one in which the interim remedy is sought.
In Stemcor USA Inc. v. CIA Siderurgica Do Para Cosipar, 870 F.3d 370, 374-79 (5thCir. 2017), the court held that a pre-arbitration attachment is available in Louisiana, under Louisiana law, in aid of an arbitration that would be subject to the Convention and was to be filed in New York.
