In a recent blog post, Professor Jeff Sovern responded to our blog post indicating that the CFPB’s March 10, 2014 Arbitration Study strongly supports the industry’s view that consumers fare better in arbitration than...more
The California Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Sanchez v. Valencia Holding Company, LLC, on August 3, 2015, reversing a finding by the Court of Appeal that an arbitration provision was unconscionable...more
8/12/2015
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
AT&T Mobility v Concepcion ,
Best Practices ,
CA Supreme Court ,
Class Action ,
CLRA ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Putative Class Actions ,
SCOTUS ,
Unconscionable Contracts
The American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association and The Financial Services Roundtable (Associations) have filed a joint letter commenting on the final results of the CFPB’s arbitration study released in...more
A new empirical study of approximately 5,000 American Arbitration Association (AAA) consumer arbitrations conducted between 2009 and 2013 purports to find a “repeat player” effect favoring companies that previous researchers,...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently announced its decision to retain a ban on mandatory arbitration provisions in warranty claims made under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (MMWA). The FTC’s decision was announced in...more
On March 23, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in DirecTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, agreeing to resolve a split between the Ninth Circuit and California state courts on how to interpret the same DirecTV arbitration...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released final results of its study of consumer arbitration as mandated by Section 1028 of the Dodd-Frank Act. Section 1028 provides that the CFPB, “by regulation, may prohibit or...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied a petition for certiorari that challenged a California Supreme Court decision carving out an exception to the federal high court’s recent holdings in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion and...more
2/11/2015
/ American Express v Italian Colors Restaurant ,
Arbitration ,
AT&T Mobility v Concepcion ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Iskanian v CLS Transportation ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Preemption ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
SCOTUS
The California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, recently affirmed an order denying a petition to compel arbitration where the employer failed to present sufficient evidence that the employee electronically signed an...more
Jeff Sovern, through his Consumer Law & Policy Blog, recently responded to our criticism that the St. John’s study didn’t include arbitration provisions with opt-out features. Jeff makes the point that since consumers don’t...more
Following on the heels of the Pew Foundation’s survey of consumer attitudes towards arbitration and the CFPB’s on-going empirical study of consumer arbitration, a group of professors from St. John’s University School of Law...more
In a case intersecting the 89-year-old Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the digital era, the Ninth Circuit has ruled that a consumer who did not read the company’s terms of use when ordering a product on its website was not...more
In Opalinski v. Robert Half International, Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that where an arbitration clause is silent as to the availability of classwide arbitration, that issue should...more
Can an employer compel arbitration in accordance with an arbitration clause in a contract that has terminated? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently answered this question in the affirmative....more
In the aftermath of AT&T Mobility, LLC v. Concepcion and American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, consumer lawyers have frequently argued that arbitration agreements should be invalidated if features other than the...more
On December 3, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) ruling that an employer violates the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by requiring employees to...more
Two recent Ninth Circuit opinions and a California Supreme Court ruling demonstrate that the debate over the enforceability of consumer arbitration provisions is far from over. With the U.S. Supreme Court weighing whether to...more
A recent decision by the Arizona Court of Appeals underscores the importance of keeping consumer arbitration agreements consumer friendly. In Clark v. Renaissance West, LLC, the court affirmed the trial court’s denial of a...more
As part of its on-going study of consumer arbitration mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB announced on June 7, 2013 that it is seeking funding from the Office of Management and Budget to undertake a telephone survey of...more
Applying the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Oxford Health Plans v. Sutter, the 11th Circuit affirmed an arbitrator’s conclusion that the parties’ agreement permitted class-wide arbitration....more
The U.S. Supreme Court today delivered a knock-out punch to the last major court challenge to the use of class action waivers in consumer arbitration agreements....more
In a rare unanimous decision on an arbitration issue, the Supreme Court upheld an arbitrator's ruling permitting the arbitration to proceed on a class-wide basis....more
As we reported, the CFPB has asked the Office of Management and Budget to approve the Bureau’s plans to conduct a national telephone survey of 1,000 credit card holders as part of its study of the use of mandatory arbitration...more
Additional questions concerning the applicability of AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion to representative actions arose this week when a California intermediate court of appeals ruled that claims under the state's Private Attorneys...more
The CFPB is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget to conduct a national telephone survey of 1,000 credit card holders as part of its study of the use of mandatory arbitration agreements in connection with...more