possibly provide the district court jurisdiction to confirm an arbitration award against the united states for three reasons the first being the obvious reason that that statute specifically limits the district court jurisdiction to cases in which the claim is one under ten thousand dollars that was the just the district court didn't have jurisdiction correct because that the that the confirmation of the of the award was filed in the wrong court should been any right congressman has not passed a statute that's ways the united states is sovereign immunity to enforcement of an arbitration award under the arbitration act except in those instances covered by the administrative dispute resolution and that's it so what our position is is not a back and forth shell game between the court of federal claims and the district court which is what i think the district court judge believed when in fact it's states if they filed this well i brought as a counter claim in the central district of california under the tucker act or under the little talker act exclusive jurisdiction over any appeal from that would have to be in the federal circuit understand that and there is jurisdiction for the united states to do that under section thirteen thirty five right but what are his mission is then is that there is no reciprocal jurisdiction therefore no plaintiff park place could have made itself of course provides no jurisdiction in the district courts only in the court of federal claims that interact with again counsel there's a possibility here that they've waived everything above ten thousand dollars so you guys are just hasn't made that argument yet but if you seems to  that if they wanted to they could have tried to waive all of the element of a claim of above ten thousand dollars and try to say this is a basis for jurisdiction but we have other and in the sense of a motion to compel under section four of the arbitration act there is no basis for that because it's a specific performance of a type remedy that the tucker act has been interpreted over and over again a not allowing that was the real problem here and that is the reason why in the court of federal claims were there think that if united states had entered into a contract and had agreed to  and it was done in the manner that congress directed through the conditions of the administrative dispute resolution act in that instance there is a waiver of sovereign immunity to both a motion to compel confirm there's your there's your waiver of sovereign immunity what would be the basis for a party seeking to confirm an arbitration award to bring that into a district court or a court federal claims what would be the jurisdictional hook for the court and in section five seventy six that and those instances states that you know arbitration award can be enforced in a district court and the united states doesn't have the ability to make the argument that sovereign immunity precludes this those statutes would be and i think it was referred to in the electric lock lightwave decision which we  argument that's being if the answer if you were to say that there is no jurisdiction provided to the district court even in that instance then it's make then you're you're making an argument that the government is not made in this case which is that there is no and of arbitration awards made in government cases in any circumstance an argument that we've not an advance in this case because we don't have to we know that in this instance it certainly can happen regardless of if a claim for breach of contract on the arbitration clause had been advanced in the court of federal claims the federal circuit's holding and certainly in the second decision why saying that you know you're bound to the arbitration agreement that final and binding arbitration you're bound to final are finding arbitration without having an against specific performance that have been well established in context of government contracting wouldn't make any sense to me what happens when the government enters a contract is that if the government breaches that contract contract claims that might be made and hasn't been made we are waiting for that in another in another case i mean that's there's a pending court of federal claims lawsuit going on right now and they through section nine and the court said no we can't and the federal circuit said no they can't they did not that time make the alternative argument of if we can in force it through the arbitration act we want to there was no basis for any district court judgment money judgment against the government in this case and the candidates and we've discussed the talk or act in a little talk or act the other candidates were leaving the park place asserts the authority of the attorney general under section five sixteen of title twenty eight that clearly doesn't work as it's not a statute in which congress has waived the government's sovereign in  something that can't be confirmed as we've as we've argued of we presume the court of federal claims case would take up from where are the thoughts three and a half years ago and you know the midst of discovery and motions litigation on the merits of these breach of contract claims that had been pending in the courts in one nine hundred ninety nine so we don't expect that that would be the end of the matter regarding the arbitration award either because as we've pointed out we're not aware of any reason why the parkways couldn't we just tried to get approval of that court to amend their pending complaint to assert additional proof of contract based on this entire  arbitration adventure that we've had for the last couple of years but that being said our position is also that not only does this court or should this court reverse the district court's decision  that well why would it matter if the if the award couldn't be confirmed why would the government care but in this context it does matter as i've pointed out there is a pending case in the court of federal claims in which a breach general partners in this kind of context and the court i think was a little bit uneasy with the prospect of making in order that was going to touch on anything covered by the arbitration act certainly saying that if the arbitration act itself requires actions in district courts then you park place aren't entitled to an order confirming anything and you government aren't entitled to any sort of order vacating i think the court may have a question if this case were to go back there as to whether the government's arguments for vacating the award are properly decided there were in the district court might think that that's some way unfair because we are arguing very directly that although the district court lacked jurisdiction to confirm the order or do anything that would result in an affirmative award of money against united possibility that you can read those decisions those decisions either the november two thousand third decision or the two thousand and five decision of the court of federal claims without realizing that the court was very annoyed with you introductory remarks but i'd like to skip those and go right to the jurisdictional issue because i think that's where the added value is here this morning if i have some time at the end i might refer to making some remarks i'm i would like to mention one case  sovereign immunity area but i'd really like to focus my attention on the issue that is of concern to the court let me start off by saying that the agra issue the administrative dispute resolution act decided three times it was decided in the court of federal claims in november of two thousand and three it was decided in the federal circuit you know party to and it was decided below in the central district of california it was decided adversely to the cases involving the attorney general's authority to supervise litigation in the united states in fact i believe that supplemental lectures were brecker one and two you'll see a website statement by the department of justice specifically saying that agreed with everything it says in this website announcement it said the attorney general represented by litigation counsel from the justice department said that the attorney general has plenary power under sections five sixteen and five nineteen  over litigation of the united states this includes the power to settle or compromised claims and that without express statutory authority this power includes the power to resolve claims with binding arbitration this was a position that as i'm not sure how it ended up i know that the united states agreed specifically in its representations to the court that it would be bound by whatever award the arbitrator issued in accordance with f a a standards if there was no fraud or misconduct in other words they would be bound but i wanted to ask you is by what authority with the district court have the right of the jurisdiction to enter a judgment against the government for over ten thousand dollars we believe that a supple you have an argument that's in the first section of your brief about why we ought to confirm the arbitration award not withstanding the fact that the arbitrator relied on the six year tucker act that's limitations rather than the for your california talk and the united states came in to move to vacate a motion which it lost under thirteen forty five united states district court and we follow a motion to confirm which we were not only encouraged to do by the united states district court here when the government came in and filed this complaint and moved to vacate the trial court the central district court said mr buckley you can go ahead and follow through and try to get your confirmation in the claims court but if you can't come that's another and they argument so everybody stands back to the central district and that's where we went and because of the history of the case i guess i'd like to say the jurisdictional issue never was squarely squarely raised as it should have been it wasn't even clear what the government's basis for jurisdiction was originally if you read the complaint thirteen forty five was not in and but it became obvious as the case went along that it was that it was the basis and of course the talker act doesn't bar that you can have supplemental jurisdiction appended to thirteen forty five jurisdiction asserted by the united states only way that you can do that is if you are willing to maintain the fiction that a judgment of nine and ten is very very tight and if the government loses on a section ten motion we ought to be able to have supplemental jurisdiction over our motion to confront and that is our position for better or worse that's the position we're that that may well be right your honor we hadn't considered it but i do agree with you that we're not asking for money here directly speaking we've already won the money we're simply asking what the f a a gives us an opportunity to request which can agree to binding arbitration you can use thirteen forty five jurisdiction to make sure that it takes a shot of getting the award vacated but absent federal question jurisdiction someplace else the winner if  you prevail against the government has no place to go but that brings up with mr white's point that you could go back and like to sell the court claims under your hundred where does that end here i mean you know that ends when you either win or lose their i mean but we we have to go back and we have to amend our complain and we have to sue for breach of contract i mean if the district court has no jurisdiction to sign the judgment you want to do is isn't that what we've got so that's a pretty  thousand dollars if there's no jurisdiction in and under any federal law if there is no jurisdiction then we may have no option but to go back to the court of federal crimes or to go to state court and then you have issues weren't great and these are cases that have not been presented to the court of the case of christians and the cold industries which is a united states supreme court place that was what was an issue in christianson the seventh circuit had tried to transfer the jurisdictional decision back to the federal circuit because the second circuit disagree with the federal circuit the case without the we're not disagreeing with the federal circuit here participation in binding arbitration if you do it that is the kind of the sea change at the justice department whereby the justice department decided that it had the power to enter into binding arbitration like anybody else and if you look on page fifteen the last few days and thought this whole thing seems to turn on the fortuity of the government having bungled this by arguing under thirty forty five there i that's why we're here and i'm not going to deny it on the other hand i that is why we're here we haven't been forced to decide what we would do if we were here i think what we what we might do is try to go to steak and argue that the waiver of sovereign immunity that allow the government to engage in binding we didn't by any means control that's i think it's fair to state that these three very distinguished people were shocked stunned by what they heard i think you can see that supports the government's position that clearly this court and where the district court was not it was not appropriate to view this as a matter of collateral estoppel clearly couldn't be because the federal circuit and of federal claims are not in the business of determining what the district court's jurisdiction is and in that respect i ask cap is very different from this fact pattern because there it was very close to this court a very same print the very same standard of whether there was some action that resulted in this property being used in the commercial activity united states here the federal circuit made a very simple holding in hardy to arbitration clause of this joint venture agreement it's going to be a quick book to the united states in the same extent as everything else which is what we meant when we said that they could sue in the court of federal claims that's far as it goes and only implicates the talker act the ability to file an action in the court of federal claims or to amend an action in the court of federal claims relating to the breach of contract claims it has nothing to do never mentioned never alluded to the possibility of district court jurisdiction to any force through specific performance