9 U.S.C. § 12
Section 12 · Notice of motions to vacate or modify; service; stay of proceedings
This is the Federal Arbitration Act
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 354 court decisions — leading case DelCostello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters (1983)
Most recently applied in First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting W.L.L. v. Kellogg Brown & Root International, Incorporated (June 2025)
Cases citing this section usually also cite 9 U.S.C. § 10 · 9 U.S.C. § 9 · 9 U.S.C. § 1
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Notice of a motion to vacate, modify, or correct an award must be served upon the adverse party or his attorney within three months after the award is filed or delivered. If the adverse party is a resident of the district within which the award was made, such service shall be made upon the adverse party or his attorney as prescribed by law for service of notice of motion in an action in the same court. If the adverse party shall be a nonresident then the notice of the application shall be served by the marshal of any district within which the adverse party may be found in like manner as other process of the court. For the purposes of the motion any judge who might make an order to stay the proceedings in an action brought in the same court may make an order, to be served with the notice of motion, staying the proceedings of the adverse party to enforce the award.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Derivation
Act Feb. 12, 1925, ch. 213, §12, 43 Stat. 885.
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
Service and filing of pleadings and other papers, see rule 5, Title 28, Appendix, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure.