Ninth Circuit Concludes That Lack of Record Does Not Warrant Vacatur

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that the inadvertent failure to record arbitration proceedings did not warrant vacating the arbitration award. The court thus affirmed confirmation of the award.

Salah Uddin and TD Ameritrade Inc. arbitrated a dispute before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The arbitration agreement provided that the arbitration was supposed to be recorded, but the arbitrators inadvertently forgot to record the proceedings. Uddin claimed that the arbitrators interrupted, rushed, and pressured him. He sought to vacate the award, but the district court denied his request and instead granted TD Ameritrade’s motion to confirm.

The Ninth Circuit affirmed. It rejected Uddin’s argument that the failure to record the proceedings constituted “misbehavior.” The court alternatively held that even if the failure to record the arbitration amounted to misbehavior, Uddin had not shown prejudice due to the lack of a recording or transcript. It noted that arbitrators need not explain their reasoning. The Ninth Circuit rejected Uddin’s arguments about arbitrators purportedly interrupting, rushing, and pressuring him by noting that those contentions were “insufficient to show that the arbitrators exceeded the bounds of efficient management of the hearing and instead behaved in a fundamentally unfair manner that prejudiced Uddin’s ability to present his case.” The court also held that “the absence of a recording or transcript is not alone sufficient to establish that the arbitrators ignored applicable law.” The court therefore affirmed the confirmation.

Uddin v. TD Ameritrade, Inc., No. 24-5073 (9th Cir. Apr. 13, 2026).