A Personal Note

In March 2022 an obscure website allegedly devoted to “whistleblowing” concerning Wall Street misconduct published an article aligned with the interests of the Respondents in an international arbitration in which I serve as the Tribunal Chair. The article falsely reported that, according to whistleblower-provided information, I had apparently accepted a $250,000 bribe from one of the Claimants at the time of my appointment. Please read here (https://wallstreetwhistleblower.org/2022/03/15/exclusive-whistleblower-exposes-alleged-goldman-sachs-bribery-scheme/). At intervals from that time up to February 2025, another website evidently aligned with the interests of the same Respondents published additional false reports and repeated the false allegation of corruption. Please read here ( https://arbitrationmonitor.com/is-the-aaa-icdr-failing-to-address-corruption-of-arbitration-tribunals/; https://arbitrationmonitor.com/marc-goldstein-and-the-problem-of-the-sua-sponte-arbitrator/). Observing the arbitrator’s ethical duty of confidentiality, rather than testing the limits of that duty, I have until now avoided speaking publicly about these matters while the case proceeded.

In March 2025, after issuance of our Tribunal’s Fifth Partial Final Award, the Claimants elected to make public disclosure of each of our Tribunal’s five Partial Final Awards and three of our Procedural Orders. All of these were in turn republished as links in a Global Arbitration Review article. The GAR article is linked HERE, the Fifth Partial Final Award HERE, and that Award’s appendices (our prior Awards and three Procedural Orders.) HERE. Respondents have not only been unanimously on the losing side in five Partial Final Awards, but the first four of those five awards have been confirmed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Judgments affirmed by the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and Respondents attempts to have those awards vacated on grounds of Tribunal bias and misconduct failed. (The Fifth Partial Award – which finds the Respondents to have been responsible for the false Internet publications, and awards punitive damages -- is before the US District Court for confirmation. Respondents seek vacatur of the Award). In addition, the District Court has dismissed a separate lawsuit by Respondents to disqualify the Tribunal.

Despite these outcomes, and even though, as reported in the Fifth Partial Final Award, each of the five attempts by the Respondents to challenge my continued service as an arbitrator before the administering institution was rejected, these false allegations made on the Internet have remained on the Internet, and predictably have found their way into AI summaries concerning my reputation such as ChatGPT. Those who published these falsehoods on the Internet evidently intended to cause reputational harm in service of the Respondents’ objectives.

The allegations made against me are false. If it is meaningful to your evaluation of my candidacy for appointment, I encourage you to read our Tribunal’s Awards, the Judgments of the Southern District of New York and the Second Circuit mentioned above, and the District Court’s Judgment dated April 22, 2025 finding the Respondents in contempt of court. Proceedings that are in progress seeking further contempt sanctions against those Respondents are also reflected on the Southern District Court’s public docket.

Detail Made Necessary by AI – Conflict of Interest Allegations

With the aim ultimately to eradicate the republication of falsehoods in ChatGPT (and perhaps other AI summaries), it appears necessary to provide even more detail.

Shortly after the WallStreetWhistleblower publication was disclosed to the Tribunal in 2022, I made a disclosure in the arbitration. The disclosure reported to the Parties the falsity of the facts on which the accusation of corruption rested. The disclosure went on to disclose, by way of emphasis on the absence of relevant relationships with Goldman Sachs, the only relationship of any kind that I had (or have) with Goldman Sachs other than as an arbitrator. As stated in the decision of US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan dated January 18, 2023, linked HERE, in which our First Partial Final Award was confirmed and Respondents’ motion to vacate the award was denied, I “disclos[ed] to the parties that [I have] a second cousin, also a friend, who is a retired Goldman Sachs partner… [I] further disclosed that [t]his second cousin had retired from Goldman Sachs prior to the commencement of the Arbitration and that he had ‘no knowledge of or connection to the subject matter of this case.’  Judge Kaplan continued: “On June 8, 2022, upon the motion of the Respondents to disqualify the Chairman, the ICDR concluded that ‘[a]fter careful review of the comments submitted by the parties and pursuant to our authority under the applicable [AAA Commercial] Rules, … the challenge to the [Panel] is hereby denied and the [Panel] is therefore reaffirmed.’ … Respondents seek to challenge the impartiality of the Chairman on the same grounds that already were reviewed carefully and rejected by the ICDR.”

The District Court proceeded to reject the Respondents’ renewed challenge in its January 18, 2023 Judgment. The Court stated: “With respect to the Chairman, Respondents seek to amend their cross-petition to vacate the [First Partial Final Award] due to the Chairman’s June 1 [2022] Disclosure. ICDR has already reviewed and rejected disqualification of the Chairman on this ground and per AAA Commercial Rule 18 (c), this decision is dispositive. Nevertheless, taking the June 1 Disclosure into consideration, as well as the myriad criticisms of the Chairman in Respondents’ papers, Respondents have failed to meet their burden of establishing objective facts that are inconsistent with impartiality. Accordingly, Respondents have failed to establish evident partiality by the Chairman and amendment of the cross-petition to vacate would be futile.” Respondents appealed that Judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and in a Summary Order on February 6, 2024, linked HERE, the Second Circuit affirmed the District Court’s Judgment. As the Second Circuit’s Order contains no discussion of the conflict of interest claim or the original claim of payment of a bribe, it appears that Respondents did not attempt to pursue either of these allegations in the Second Circuit.  

Despite these facts, as of July 4, 2025, the ChatGPT summary that answered a query about “Marc Goldstein reputation as an arbitrator,” stated that in 2024 “allegations surfaced accusing Goldstein of not disclosing a familial connection to a Goldman Sachs-affiliated individual,” stated that “[a]s of the most recent public filings, the Southern District of New York has not vacated the award but the matter remains under judicial scrutiny,” and further stated that there existed a “concern” about a “single high-profile conflict-of-interest allegation” that is “unresolved and under review.”  This was and is incorrect, in multiple respects. The ChatGPT summary as of July 4, 2025 – possibly now modified as the result of the publication of this Personal Note -- mistakenly relied on disinformation in the Arbitration Monitor articles referenced above. What occurred in 2024 was that the Arbitration Monitor website – which the Fifth Partial Final Award determined to be not only aligned with Respondents but created by them or on their behalf as a vehicle to publicize their allegations -- repeated the 2022 and 2023 allegations of conflict-of-interest without reporting on the ICDR’s rejection of the allegations in 2022 and the Court’s rejection of the allegations in 2023. As a result, the above-referenced ChatGPT assessment of my reputation, made in evident reliance on an Arbitration Monitor article in 2024 and the presumed continuing currency of the information therein, did not take into account the facts about the ICDR’s rejection of the allegation of conflict-of-interest in 2022, the Southern District of New York’s rejection of that allegation in January 2023, and the Second Circuit’s affirmance of the Southern District’s Judgment in February 2024.  The ChatGPT summary as of July 4, 2025, also failed to report that the Respondents’ separate lawsuit to disqualify the Tribunal was dismissed by Judge Kaplan on February 20, 2024 in a Memorandum Endorsement linked HERE.

Detail Made Necessary by AI -  Tribunal Procedure Allegations

The Arbitration Monitor “sua sponte” article of April 10, 2024 could be refuted by a detailed report of confidential arbitration proceedings, but that obviously is not ethically appropriate for a sitting arbitrator, at least where the reputational harm resulting from the false publications can be addressed without making public aspects of the arbitration that remain confidential. The public record with respect to the Arbitration Monitor article will suffice.

Two days before this article’s publication, on April 8, 2024, the Respondents in the arbitration filed under seal in the Southern District of New York’s docket for the award enforcement cases their Reply Memorandum of Law and Reply Declaration (with 24 exhibits) in further support of their motion for reconsideration of the Court’s Order dated February 20, 2024, linked above, that confirmed the Tribunal’s Second Partial Final Award (linked above) and denied Respondents’ motion to vacate that Award. The public docket of the Court reports that “[t]hese rulings are made substantially for the reasons stated in petitioner’s [Claimants’] papers on these motions, the Court’s prior orders and opinions in this case… and – to the extent relevant – the decision of the Court of Appeals [of February 8, 2024, affirming the Judgment giving confirmation to the First Partial Final Award].”

Persons genuinely interested in the fairness of the proceedings underlying the First and Second Partial Final Awards should read those Awards, linked above. They should also examine the District Court’s rejection of the Respondent’s contentions of arbitrator misconduct and procedural unfairness to Respondents. Arbitration Monitor in its “sua sponte” article – potentially amplified by ChatGPT and other AI summaries that capture Internet content that is unreliable -- continues to foster the misleading impression that these issues were (and are) pending before the Southern District Court as a first instance matter. That is not true today, and was not true at the date of first publication in April 2024. The “sua sponte” article when it was first published pertained to a motion by Respondents to have the Court reconsider positions the Court had already rejected. The misleading impression created at the time of initial publication lives on via the Internet, because search engines still identify the Arbitration Monitor “sua sponte” article when a search request aligns with its contents, such as a search for information about my reputation as an arbitrator.

Arbitration Monitor did not publish any updated report about the Terra Towers arbitration following the Court’s Order dated May 1, 2024, linked HERE that denied that motion for reconsideration – even though the text of that Order is on the Court’s public docket and even though that Order states in pertinent part that Respondents were “repackaging arguments that the Court rejected previously” and Judge Kaplan observed in that Order: “It is long since time that counsel and his clients recognize that they have lost. Their endless repetition is vexatious and inappropriate….”  Arbitration Monitor also made no updated report when the Court’s Orders confirming the Second Partial Final Award (and the Third and Fourth), and denying each of Respondents’ motions to vacate, were affirmed by the Second Circuit. Arbitration Monitor has not objectively reported about the Terra Towers arbitration and the related judicial proceedings, but has only reported about positions asserted by Respondents, whether or not those positions had been or ultimately were rejected by the Courts – which has been the fate of all of Respondents’ allegations concerning the Tribunal’s impartiality and its procedural conduct.

Arbitration Monitor does not identify on its website the creator of the website, or its operators, or any persons involved in the creation of content on the site. All of its articles are attributed to the anonymized “AM Editorial Team.” The physical address of Arbitration Monitor listed on its website is 301 Thelma Drive #411, Casper, Wyoming 82609. The address, according to Google searches, is the location of a UPS Store in the Plaza East Shopping Center. Our Tribunal’s findings of fact concerning Arbitration Monitor and its articles about the Terra Towers arbitration are stated in the Fifth Partial Final Award, linked above.