What a wonderful Thanksgiving present. We couldn't have wished for anything more other than a huge award tomorrow. What this challenge by Vz. means is almost certainly that Vz was unhappy with the way their arbitrator was swaying. This they could tell especially from the type of questions he was asking during some aspect of the damage phase. It is a last ditch effort to stop the blood from flowing. You never do this as it will not only turn your own arbitrator against you but also cause the other two to turn against you even further than they already were. Assuming liability is a non-issue, it will have the tendency to cause the arbitrators to award more rahter than less in termsof the range of damsges they were considering, especially if Vz cannot give a strong and valid reason for the challenge. I have handled many arbitrations, as well as jury and non-jury cases, where the damages were very substantial and have never seen or heard of an attempt by a party to challenge their own arbitrator (or judge) at any stage of the proceeding except on very rare occasion. Vz is hurting and they know this attempt will almost certainly hurt them, but they are willing to take the risk becusae as large as the risk is, they feel they have nothing to lose. By the way, the only real basis for challenging an arbitrator during the proceeding is where the party has evidence that the arbitrator has a conflict of interest that he has not disclosed and only recently discovered or where the arbitrator is biased or prejudiced and such bias was just discoverd or where there is evidence of bribery, corruption, or fraud and such was only recently discovered (as if any of these are not just discovered, the basis of the challenge is considerred waived). If the arbitrators see the challenge as an attempt to intentionally delay the proceeding and nothing more, they will do everything possible to expedite it.

In a related vein, our own party arbitrator, John Gotanda, is one of the leading authorities in the world on damages in international arbitrations and his views are favorable to us in terms of the extent of damages that can be awarded, especially where lost profits is an issue. The other arbitrators, esp. Vz's, will now pay close attention to his views and possibly "punish" Vz for their challenge. Of course, they will never say or do anything to show their motives.