Liz Kramer

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Liz Kramer current serves as Minnesota's Solicitor General.  Previously, she was a partner at Stinson Leonard Street and the founder of the award-winning blog, ArbitrationNation.

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In an opinion released yesterday, the Seventh Circuit schooled appellant’s counsel first on the application of the New York Convention and Panama Convention, then on the high standard of review it applies to commercial arbitration awards, and finally expressed profound disappointment with the frequency of motions to vacate arbitration awards.  “Attempts to obtain judicial review…

The Third Circuit refused to vacate an arbitrator’s award, despite allegations that she failed to disclose contributions the defendant’s parent company had made to her judicial campaign and failed to disclose that she co-taught a seminar with in-house counsel for the defendant’s parent company.  Freeman v. Pittsburgh Glass Works, LLC, __ F.3d __, 2013 WL…

The Supreme Court heard arguments in AmEx III today, the case that presents the question whether an arbitration agreement precluding class actions can be invalid if it makes it impossible for plaintiffs to vindicate federal statutory rights (in this case, because individual antitrust cases would be prohibitively expensive).  The full transcript is available here.…

The Third Circuit just issued a decision that tries to divine the dividing line between challenges to the formation of contracts containing arbitration clauses (which are presumptively for courts), and challenges to the validity of contracts containing arbitration clauses (which are presumptively for arbitrators, if the challenge is to the contract as a whole).  It…

Two federal circuit courts recently reversed district court decisions allowing non-signatories to compel arbitration.  The analysis emphasizes that for a defendant to prove equitable estoppel compels arbitration, the plaintiff’s legal claims must be closely related to the contract containing the arbitration clause.

Retail grocers asserted antitrust claims against wholesalers in In re Wholesale Grocery Products …

A recent decision from a federal district court in Tennessee raises a discrepancy in how the courts treat arbitration agreements that hinder a plaintiff’s state law and federal law claims.  Cases under the FAA state that arbitration agreements cannot be enforced if enforcement means plaintiffs will not be able to effectively vindicate their federal statutory…

On January 29, the U.S. Dept. of Justice filed an amicus brief supporting respondents in AmEx III, arguing that to enforce the class arbitration waiver would be to create a large loophole for important federal laws.  The Solicitor General has also asked to argue at the hearing on February 27.  To my knowledge, DOJ…