A reasonable person may have thought that the Supreme Court effectively killed off class arbitrations with its decisions in Stolt-Nielsen and Concepcion, but at least two government agencies have recently made decisions that ensure financial consumers and employees can bring classwide claims in some arbitrations.
FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, regulates all securities
In a 2-1 decision, the Third Circuit held last week that the arbitration agreement in a personal computer purchase was valid, despite its mandate of a defunct arbitral forum. Its decision, Khan v. Dell Inc., ___ F.3d ___, 2012 WL 163899 (3d Cir. Jan. 20, 2012), is in line with the decision of the
Earlier in 2011, courts in both Pennsylvania and Illinois issued decisions finding that when a consumer’s arbitration agreement called for the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) to administer the arbitration, but the NAF no longer administered consumer disputes, the arbitration agreements were unenforceable. Those courts found the parties’ choice of NAF was “integral” to the arbitration
The Supreme Court of Texas issued three decisions last week that all relate to arbitrator selection and offer reminders to drafters and litigators that arbitrator selection is a critical component of arbitration agreements.
Two of the decisions involved tort claims against the same defendant, a cemetery owner. In re Serv. Corp. Int’l, ___ S.W.3d ___,
The lawyers who sought to disqualify their opposing counsel during a pending arbitration must have been giddy when they drew Judge Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York as their judge. Judge Scheindlin, who is famously tough on unscrupulous lawyers, did not disappoint. She went out of her way to exercise jurisdiction over
By Liz Kramer and Patrick Burns (http://www.valuesolveadr.org/patrick.html ), Guest Blogger
If an arbitration agreement calls for the dispute to be administered by an ADR provider that will not or cannot accept the case, or calls for the application of non-existent rules, it may not be enforceable. That issue seems to be increasingly prevalent in
A recent decision from the Western District of Oklahoma reminds all litigators that you may be able to get preliminary injunctive relief from the courts, despite having a valid arbitration agreement. Although this seems to fly in the face of the courts’ general arbitration refrain (stolen from M.C. Hammer: “[We] Can’t Touch This”), courts rationalize
The AAA just reported that 143,349 cases were filed with it in 2010. JAMS reports that approximately 10,000 cases are filed with it each year.
There were 190,543 new civil cases filed with all the U.S. District Courts in 2010.
In short, two of the largest ADR providers are currently handling almost as many civil