Scope of Arbitration Agreement

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A new opinion from the Eleventh Circuit highlights an issue that can be confusing to those encountering FAA case law for the first time: when does the federal presumption of arbitrability apply?  The answer is the presumption only applies to whether the scope of an arbitration agreement is broad enough to encompass the parties’ dispute,…

In the Hall Street decision in 2008, SCOTUS held that parties could not contractually enlarge Section 10 of the Federal Arbitration Act by agreeing that a court could vacate the arbitration award for reasons not found in that section.  This week, the Ninth Circuit held that parties also cannot contractually restrict Section 10 by providing…

Now that we know the Supreme Court is not going to be addressing non-signatories’ ability to compel arbitration this term (at least not in the Toyota case), we can take a moment to look at what lower courts are doing with that issue.   In short, the trend is for courts to clarify that it…

After reading more than 40 decisions about arbitration from state high courts, issued just in the past eight months, I have two bits of wisdom to share.  First, that is not the best way to spend your summer vacation, even for a devoted arbitration nerd.  And second, there are arbitration issues percolating in state courts…

In the past few months, two federal appellate courts have had to determine whether parties were bound to arbitrate claims that arose from relationships governed by multiple agreements, only some of which called for arbitration.  While the courts reached different conclusions based on the facts, they both relied on the same critical inquiry: did the…

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…

The Ninth Circuit ruled this week that a class of car owners could pursue their court claims against the manufacturer, Toyota, for product defects and false advertising, despite the existence of an arbitration agreement in each of the owners’ purchase agreements with the car dealerships.  The court held that Toyota had not proven either of…

Two circuit court decisions in the last week have denied arbitration motions based on the lack of an arbitration agreement between the parties.  These decisions show that while the federal presumption in favor of arbitration is generally a strong current, it is not strong enough to pull non-signatories into arbitration (or even to stay their…

The Fifth Circuit recently refused to vacate an arbitration award, despite the loser’s arguments that: the arbitrators decided claims outside the scope of the arbitration agreement; and the winner’s expert used incorrect damage numbers in his testimony. Morgan Keegan & Co., Inc. v. Garrett, 2012 WL 5209985 (5th Cir. Oct. 23, 2012). 

At issue in…

In an opinion that runs less than three pages, the Eighth Circuit ruled that a managing broker-dealer is not obligated under the FINRA rules to arbitrate with a group of investors who purchased securities from another party.  Berthel Fisher & Co. Fin. Servs., Inc. v. Larmon, __ F.3d. __, 2012 WL 4477433 (8th…