Category Archives: Arbitration

My Times Dealbook Op-Ed: Trump Faces Stark Choice: Protect Consumers or Banks

Here.  Here's the beginning and the end:   President-elect Donald J. Trump will soon face a stark choice: whether to protect consumers, the ordinary Americans he pledged to defend against a system he criticized as rigged — or to side with that system. * * * If Mr. Trump chooses not to preserve a strong, […]

Does the Access to Justice Restoration Act Offer a Way Around Arbitration Clauses?

Stanford Law Professor Janet Cooper Alexander believes that it does.  The basic idea is that states and localities would empower private attorneys general to bring actions on behalf of the governmental entity (which would not be subject to arbitration clauses) for injured consumers, etc. Here's an excerpt from the web page at the link above: […]

Adam Levitin: Calls to Fire Cordray are About Shilling for the Financial Industry and to Block Arbitration, Payday Lending Regs

by Jeff Sovern In a characteristically terrific post at Credit Slips, Georgetown's Adam Levitin explains the real reasons for calls to fire CFPB Director Cordray.  A worthy companion to Adam's recent op-ed at American Banker (free content), What the CFPB 'Commission' Debate Is Really About.   Both worth a read. 

Times Article on a Consumer Movement to Injure Breitbart, Fake News

Here (behind paywall).  Excerpt: In mid-November, a Twitter group called Sleeping Giants became the hub of the new movement. The Giants and their followers have communicated with more than 1,000 companies and nonprofit groups whose ads appeared on Breitbart, and about 400 of those organizations have promised to remove the site from future ad buys. […]

Drahozal Article Examines Arbitral Issue Preclusion as a Substitute for Class Actions

Christopher R. Drahozal of Kansas has written The Issue Preclusive Effect of Arbitration Awards, Proceedings of the NYU 69th Annual Conference on Labor: Mediation and Arbitration of Employment and Consumer Disputes, Forthcoming.  Here's the abstract: Courts in the United States have two primary means (in addition to individual adjudication) by which to resolve disputes in […]

House “Freedom Caucus” Asks Trump to Kill CFPB Proposed Arbitration Rule; Is Freedom Just Another Word for Tricking/Trapping Consumers?

WSJ report here (behind paywall). The Caucus consists of 40 members.  The article reports that they seek rollback of 200 rules, but they anticipate that the number will rise. 

Progressive Magazine Tackles Arbitration Clauses

Here. Excerpt: On Monday, September 12, Fultz was summoned to a meeting with the human resources manager at her company, EGS Customer Care. She was given a form and told she needed to sign it. The form, titled “Agreement to Arbitrate,” bore the name of EGS’s parent company, Alorica. It pledged employees to resolve all […]

While Country Focuses on Thanksgiving, Wells Fargo Invokes Arbitration, that Consumers Agreed to Without Understanding, to Block Consumers Injured by Its Fraud From Suing

by Jeff Sovern Here is the report in the NY Times (behind a paywall).  Wells filed its arbitration motion on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.  So Wells is using a secret system for adjudicating claims, agreed to by consumers who didn't understand what arbitration clauses mean, and invoked it at a time when people are less likely […]

Will the CFPB Issue the Arbitration Rule Soon?

That's one of the questions addressed by the Wall Street Journal in an article headlined Financial Regulators Scramble to Complete Postcrisis Rules. (behind paywall). Excerpt: “This type of ’midnight rulemaking’ is neither conducive to sound policy nor consistent with principles of democratic accountability,” Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told […]

AAJ: Forced Arbitration: How Corporations Use the Fine Print to Bully Americans

Here.  And here is the abstract: Though few realize it, forced arbitration clauses are endemic in today’s marketplace — hidden in credit card agreements, bank accounts, corporate social media pages, even Starbucks gift cards. More than half a billion arbitration provisions infiltrate our everyday lives. Despite their prevalence, few consumers are aware of the forced […]