On February 28, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s denial of a petition to compel individual arbitration against Starz Entertainment, LLC. The court held that the plaintiff, who...more
3/5/2025
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Breach of Contract ,
Case Consolidation ,
Class Action ,
Contract Terms ,
Dispute Resolution ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Jurisdiction ,
Motion to Compel ,
Multidistrict Litigation ,
Terms of Service
For decades, representatives of business interests fought to place disputes, especially business-to-consumer (“B-to-C”) disputes, into arbitration rather than court. A second front in this battle developed in which these same...more
SCOTUS has once again clarified a court’s power to compel arbitration, this time in the context of conflicting delegation clauses. In doing so, the Court aptly acknowledged its standing tri-layered analysis of arbitral...more
5/29/2024
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Arbitrators ,
Business Litigation ,
Coinbase ,
Coinbase Inc v Suski et al ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Delegation Clauses ,
SCOTUS ,
Sweepstakes
In October 2022, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals granted a petition to rehear the case of Corporacion AIC, SA v. Hidroelectrica Santa Rita S.A. en banc to determine whether enforcement challenges of nondomestic...more
On July 8, the Second Circuit affirmed a refusal to enforce a $1.8 billion arbitration award (now worth approximately $2.7 billion with interest) annulled by a Nigerian court in Esso v. Nigerian National Petroleum Company. In...more
In its 12th case regarding arbitration in the last five years, the Roberts court fascination with the dispute resolution method continues. In the second of two decisions regarding arbitration this week, the Court...more
6/20/2022
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Labor Law Violations ,
Preemption ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
SCOTUS ,
State Labor Laws ,
Viking River Cruises ,
Viking River Cruises Inc v Moriana
Q: In a unanimous opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court held that employers who do not act promptly to invoke an arbitration clause may be held to waive arbitration. What does this mean for my company? ...more
On April 24, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the latest in its line of recent decisions hostile to class action arbitration. In Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, the Court stated that merely showing ambiguity in an arbitration clause...more
4/25/2019
/ Ambiguous ,
Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Arbitration ,
Consent ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Federal v State Law Application ,
Jurisdiction ,
Lamps Plus Inc v Varela ,
Motion to Compel ,
Preemption ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS
For the second time in a week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion on arbitration. This time, in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, No. 17-340 (Jan. 15, 2019)...more
1/22/2019
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Commercial Truck Drivers ,
Employment Contract ,
Exceptions ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Independent Contractors ,
Motion to Compel ,
New Prime v Oliveira ,
Question of Arbitrability ,
Reaffirmation ,
SCOTUS
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued another decision making it easier for parties to arbitrate. This time, the Court did away with any exceptions to clauses delegating to arbitrators the right to decide their own...more
1/14/2019
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Arbitrators ,
Contract Terms ,
Exceptions ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Henry Schein Inc v Archer and White Sales Inc ,
Judicial Review ,
Motion to Compel ,
Question of Arbitrability ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS ,
Vacated ,
Wholly Groundless Doctrine
On May 21, in a 5-4 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that arbitration agreements in which an employee waives the right to pursue his or her employment claims in a class or collective action are enforceable under the...more
5/30/2018
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Epic Systems Corp v Lewis ,
Ernst & Young v Morris ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Murphy Oil v NLRB ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Remand ,
Reversal ,
Savings Clause ,
SCOTUS
Arbitration may end sooner and more efficiently than litigation, but it is slower to begin. A courthouse is just sitting there waiting for a complaint to be filed.
Originally published in Alternatives to the High Cost of...more
The latest large consumer data breach, this time involving Equifax, has also shed a sharp light on an ongoing controversy about consumers’ access to justice. In taking steps to ameliorate its PR crisis, Equifax found itself...more
10/27/2017
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Consumer Contracts ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Credit Reporting Agencies ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Data Breach ,
Employment Contract ,
Equifax ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Hackers ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Popular
The short-lived rule will likely be remembered as part of the Trump Administration’s dismantling of the Obama Administration’s legacy, and as continuing the trend of courts strictly enforcing agreements to arbitrate as...more
10/26/2017
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Banking Sector ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Congressional Review Act ,
Consumer Contracts ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Consumer Lenders ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Popular ,
Trump Administration
The proposed rule has broad implications for the financial industry, which has relied on class action waivers in consumer agreements to ensure that arbitration is a cost-effective way of resolving disputes with customers....more
5/12/2016
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Consumer Contracts ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Public Comment ,
Service Contracts
The court’s opinion instructs that employee agreements to arbitrate may be obtained through written acknowledgments referencing company manuals.
Arbitration remains a preferred forum for many employers, yet courts are...more
On June 10, 2013, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held in Oxford Health Plans, LLC v. Sutter that an arbitrator’s decision to authorize class arbitration will not be disturbed under Section 10(a)(4) of the Federal...more
The United States Supreme Court recently entered the latest of a series of opinions that prevent state courts from interfering with arbitration on state policy grounds. On November 26, 2012, the Court issued its per curiam...more