by Jeff Sovern I figure if it's good enough for the CFPB, it's good enough for us: I'm part of a team, along with other professors and the Hugh L Carey Center for Dispute Resolution here at the Law School, that is crafting a survey on consumer understanding of arbitration clauses. Unlike the CFPB survey, […]
Category Archives: Arbitration
I'm presenting at a few CLE programs over the next few days and I thought readers of the blog might be interested. The first can be accessed via phone; the other two will be at the American Association of Justice's Annual Convention in San Francisco: A one-hour phone briefing on American Express v. Italian Colors: Practical Implications […]
by Jeff Sovern Here (behind paywall). Excerpt: Court decisions tied to the 1968 law fell 18% year over year during a12-month period that ended May 31, to 1,037, data from the National ConsumerLaw Center shows. That number is down 38% from the peak two years earlier. The pace of new litigation is also slowing. […]
So says Paul Bland in a persuasive blog post.
A commenter on my post about the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decision in Feeney asked for an explanation in plain English. Here goes. The court decided that Massachusetts courts will not enforce an arbitration clause that bans class actions when a claim really cannot be pursued without a class action. For example, if the claim is […]
Here. The story is about how car makers are using arbitration clauses to defeat consumer protections, including state lemon laws, and keep defects secret.
by Deepak Gupta The Voice of San Diego has been publishing a muli-part series on mandatory arbitration by reporter Will Carless. The most recent installment explores the war on consumer class actions and the impact of AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion. Previous installments focus on arbitration secrecy, the National Arbitration Forum debacle, and the plight of an individual […]
In February, the brokerage firm Charles Schwab won a ruling from a hearing panel of FINRA, the financial industry regulatory authority, invalidating FINRA's rule against class-action bans and allowing Schwab to use a class-action ban in its customer agreements. The panel concluded that "the amended language used in Schwab's customer agreements to prohibit participation in […]
by Deepak Gupta The Arbitration Fairness Act of 2013 — legislation that would ban mandatory pre-dispute binding arbitration in consumer and employment contracts — was introduced today in both houses of Congress by Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.). New to this version of the bill–an exclusion for antitrust disputes. The House […]
Eric A. Zacks of Wayne State has written Shame, Regret, and Contract Design, forthcoming in Marquette Law Review. Here is the abstract: This Article examines whether contract design can influence the post-formation behavior of the party that did not prepare the contract. Repeat players that utilize the same contract for many transactions, as is the […]