Bill on Bankruptcy: Kodak Plan Bumps the Debt, Craters Stock
Tell me if you have heard this one before: ten companies are sued by a former employee as “joint employers”, even though the employee technically worked for, and signed a binding arbitration agreement with, only one of them....more
It happens every so often: someone signs an agreement to arbitrate legal claims, the agreement has a solid clause delegating arbitrability issues to an arbitrator, and then a member of that person’s family files a claim in...more
Employment arbitration agreements are an important tool for employers who wish to resolve workplace disputes in a more streamline fashion and, more importantly, avoid class and collective actions. However, enforcing...more
Employees who sign an arbitration agreement with one company cannot avoid arbitration with related defendant-companies by arguing they were not parties to the agreement. The California Court of Appeal held that claims against...more
Employers supplementing their workforce with temporary workers may be out of luck if they wish to rely on arbitration agreements between the temporary helper and the staffing provider. The California Court of Appeal, Fourth...more
A Florida district court granted a motion to stay court proceedings pending arbitration between a franchisor and a third-party, non-signatory to a franchise agreement, containing an arbitration clause....more
Conditions Precedent- In this appeal, the Eighth Appellate Court affirmed in part the trial court’s determination that Defendant breached its contract with Plaintiff disagreeing with Defendant-appellant that Plaintiff failed...more
Defendant SemGroup Corp. and intervenor-defendant Cypress Environmental Management-TIR appealed an Oklahoma district court order denying their motions to compel arbitration. The plaintiff, Robert Ferrell, was a Cypress...more
This week, the Ninth Circuit addresses the ability of non-parties to invoke arbitration agreements, and refreshes its law on the applicability of Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity in the arbitration context. KIM NGO...more
Plaintiffs Darrell Reeves and James King worked at Enterprise Products Partners through separate third-party staffing companies. Each plaintiff had a separate employment contract with his respective staffing company, which...more
The Second Circuit recently affirmed the denial of motions to compel arbitration filed by, inter alia, the Trump Corp. and a nonparty from whom the plaintiffs sought discovery....more
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC (MVP) contracted with U.S. Trinity Energy Services LLC for the construction and installation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline across property in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Trinity...more
This week, the Ninth Circuit considers a challenge to the constitutionality of the FAA’s regulations governing drug and alcohol testing for air-carrier employees, and it wrestles with difficult choice-of-law questions...more
In cases involving contracts between U.S. companies, courts frequently allow a nonsignatory to a contract to enforce an arbitration provision in the contract against a signatory, when the signatory to the contract relies on...more
This week, the Ninth Circuit simultaneously issued two decisions addressing the circumstances in which equitable estoppel can require a plaintiff to arbitrate a claim absent an arbitration agreement with the defendant. In the...more
When it comes to arbitration provisions, you may get more than you bargained for. The Third District Court of Appeals recently confirmed that by signing an arbitration provision, the signatory may be forced to arbitrate by a...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently concluded that investment advisor Ruane Cunniff & Goldfarb must face a proposed class action under ERISA Section 502(a)(2) for breach of fiduciary duty relating to its...more
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Piersing v. Domino’s Pizza Franchising LLC, 20-695 (Jan. 25 2021) and dismissed its own writ of certiorari as “improvidently granted” in Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer &...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently addressed whether a non-signatory’s attempt to compel arbitration under an international arbitration agreement using domestic doctrines of equitable estoppel is barred by the Convention on the...more
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed the denial of a motion to arbitrate where the appellants were not parties to the agreements containing arbitration clauses. The court also concluded that equitable...more
On June 15, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court welcomed back a familiar case by granting certiorari in Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer and White Sales, Inc., No. 19-963. SCOTUS itself arguably made the case’s second visit to...more
When all was said and done, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on June 1, 2020 in effect that the New York Convention (i.e., the U.N. Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards) and the...more
Sometimes compelling arbitration is simple. If the parties to a dispute signed an agreement to arbitrate, a signatory would normally be able to use that agreement as a basis to move to compel arbitration pursuant to the...more
Can your business be compelled to defend an international arbitration brought by an entity with whom you never agreed to arbitrate? On June 1, 2020, a unanimous United States Supreme Court answered this question in the...more
On June 1, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a unanimous opinion regarding the relationship between domestic equitable estoppel and the enforcement of arbitration agreements. In GE Energy Power Conversion France SAS,...more