After an arbitrator ruled that indemnification agreements between an acquiring company and certain former directors and trustees of employee stock ownership plans, were void under ERISA, the district court vacated the arbitrator’s ruling as a manifest disregard of the law. On the initial appeal of that ruling, the directors argued that district court properly found a manifest disregard of the law based on ERISA, and also because the arbitrator ignored the directors’ alternative arguments based on fraud and estoppel. The Sixth Circuit reversed the vacatur ruling under ERISA, but in passing appeared to reject the remaining arguments asserted by the directors. Accordingly, on remand, the district court precluded the directors from asserting their alternative fraud and estoppel arguments, as the “law of the case.” The directors appealed, and, in a candid opinion, the Sixth Circuit reversed, noting “[w]e regret the extent to which [the Court’s] language was misleading.” The directors’ fraud and estoppel theories were not rejected, and on remand, “the district court should address that argument in the first instance.” Schafer v. Multiband Corp., Case No. 14-2518 (6th Cir. Oct. 20, 2015).