Definition
A tribunal established by act of the New York legislature for the resolution of commercial disputes among merchants. The court operates under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce of the city of New York and exercises jurisdiction over disputes between members of that chamber, as well as between members and non-member merchants who voluntarily submit to its authority. It functions as an institutionalized arbitral body — a standing forum for merchant dispute resolution rather than an ad hoc panel convened for a single matter.
Why It Matters in Research
This entry reflects a transitional moment in the history of commercial arbitration in the United States. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Black's 2nd edition was compiled, formal arbitration infrastructure was sparse and inconsistent. The Court of Arbitration of the Chamber of Commerce represents an early experiment in institutionalized arbitration — a precursor to the modern framework established by the Federal Arbitration Act (1925) and later embodied in bodies such as the American Arbitration Association.
Researchers working in pre-FAA commercial dispute sources should be aware that this body is jurisdiction-specific (New York) and membership-contingent. The voluntary submission mechanism for non-members is significant: it anticipates consent-based arbitration clauses that would later become standard in commercial contracts, but operates through a different procedural mechanism — post-dispute submission rather than pre-dispute agreement.
When tracing arbitration precedents or party agreements in early twentieth-century New York commercial litigation, the existence of this tribunal may explain why certain disputes do not appear in court records. Awards rendered here would not necessarily generate published opinions, making the evidentiary trail thin in conventional legal research databases.
Do not conflate this body with general references to "chamber of commerce arbitration" in other jurisdictions or later periods. The specific legislative creation distinguishes it from informal merchant arbitration panels that operated without statutory authorization.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's 2nd edition (Supplemental) provides the only dictionary treatment identified for this term. The entry is compact but substantive: it identifies the legislative origin, the institutional affiliation, and the dual basis for jurisdiction — membership and voluntary submission. No equivalent entry appears in the main body of Black's 2nd edition, suggesting the term was added to the supplement as an emerging or regionally significant feature of commercial practice rather than an established term of general legal currency.
The entry does not address enforcement of awards, procedural rules of the tribunal, or appellate pathways — gaps that are consistent with the period's underdeveloped arbitration law. Historical sources are silent on whether this court's decisions carried any precedential weight or how finality was achieved absent statutory arbitration enforcement mechanisms.
Jurisdictional Note
This institution is a creature of New York statute and has no direct counterpart in other states as described. Researchers applying this term outside the New York commercial law context should treat it as a proper noun identifying a specific body, not as a generic descriptor for any chamber of commerce arbitration panel.