S.I. Strong of Missouri has written Incentives for Large-Scale Arbitration: How Policymakers Can Influence Party Behaviour. Here's the abstract: At this point, the future of large-scale arbitration (i.e., class, mass and collective procedures) can best be described as mixed. On the one hand, class arbitration has been curtailed in the United States as a result […]
Category Archives: Class Actions
Here. Excerpts: [T]he U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful business lobby in the country, started a new effort to block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by lobbying lawmakers to attach a rider to the federal budget bill that would force the regulator to conduct a new study before issuing any rule, according to people […]
by Jeff Sovern Here. Excerpt: [C]ompanies can use class action waivers to block consumer protection laws unless consumer protection laws find a way to block class action waivers. * * * Last month, the bureau made public a proposal to block class action waivers in arbitration clauses. A leading advocate for arbitration in the financial […]
by Jeff Sovern Deepak posted earlier about the extraordinary Times story on arbitration. I have been studying arbitration for some time, and yet some items in the story were new to me. Though the entire article demands to be read, here are two especially revealing quotes: Since no government agency tracks class actions, The Times […]
Robert H. Klonoff of Lewis & Clark has written Class Actions in the Year 2025: A Prognosis, Forthcoming in the Emory Law Journal. Here is the abstract: In this Article, I reflect on what the federal judiciary has done in recent years, and I attempt to predict what the class action landscape will look like […]
Michael S. Barr of Michigan has written Mandatory Arbitration in Consumer Finance and Investor Contracts, 11 New York University Journal of Law and Business (2015). Here is the abstract: Mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clauses are pervasive in consumer financial and investor contracts — for credit cards, bank accounts, auto loans, broker-dealer services, and many others. These […]
by Jeff Sovern Earlier this week, I posted a link to the Ballard Spahr comments, on behalf of various industry trade associations, on the CFPB Arbitration Study . Their thesis is that the Bureau Study indicates that consumers fare better in arbitration than litigation in general and class actions in particular. For example, here is […]
Guest Post by Professors David Horton & Andrea Cann Chandrasekher: We recently posted our draft article, After the Revolution: An Empirical Study of Consumer Arbitration, 104 Geo. L.J. — (forthcoming 2015) on the Social Science Research Network. On June 22, well-known corporate defense lawyers Alan S. Kaplinsky and Mark J. Levin published a critique of […]
David Horton and Andrea Cann Chandrasekher both of California, Davis, have written After the Revolution: An Empirical Study of Consumer Arbitration, 104 Georgetown Law Journal (Forthcoming 2015). Here's the abstract: For decades, mandatory consumer arbitration has been ground zero in the war between the business community and the plaintiffs’ bar. Some courts, scholars, and interest […]
Joanna C. Schwartz of UCLA has written The Cost of Suing Business, forthcoming in the DePaul Law Review. Here's the abstract: To listen to the Chamber of Commerce, one would think that class actions are the most significant scourge on business ever conjured up by man. In brief after brief to the Supreme Court, the […]

