While state courts have been busy articulating novel interpretations of arbitration law this summer, federal courts seem intent on getting back to basics. In recent weeks, federal appellate courts have reminded parties who has the burden of proving an agreement to arbitrate, what should happen to the case when arbitration gets compelled, how parties waive
The American Arbitration Association (AAA) has not released statistics for years (other than to the CFPB). But recently, arbitration geeks got a summer solstice gift of (limited) new information. The piece is only three pages, short enough to read during a commercial break, but here are some key numbers to know:
Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed the rules that it previewed last fall, following up on its Arbitration Study. Those rules would essentially ban class action waivers from consumer financial agreements, as well as requiring arbitral institutions to provide data on consumer financial disputes to the CFPB. (As an aside, the proposal is
Showing it will soldier on without Justice Scalia, the Supreme Court granted cert, vacated, and remanded an arbitration decision from West Virginia yesterday. Because this is the exact same treatment the Court gave a case from Hawaii’s highest court in January (and the same treatment I predicted, ahem), it suggests SCOTUS is trying to go
Justice Scalia wrote some blockbuster decisions about arbitration, enforcing arbitration agreements regardless of their real-world impact, and making a potentially dry topic exciting and contentious. Readers of his opinions knew from the first few paragraphs of the analysis how the case was coming out. If he was bench-slapping a lower court for its interpretation of
The actual and potential arbitration docket at the Supreme Court contracted in the last week due to three events.
First, SCOTUS made quick work of an appeal from the Hawaii Supreme Court. Remember when I predicted that the DIRECTV case was going to make it even harder for state courts to find arbitration agreements unenforceable
Arbitration case law did not break any new ground in 2015. Instead, a larger sector of the public became aware of the ground already broken in 2011 and 2013, as well as how common arbitration is in professional sports.
Let’s review some of the attention-grabbing arbitration headlines of 2015. There was:
A lot of interesting arbitration law was made this year, on topics from validity to vacatur, but the banner issue was arbitrator authority. SCOTUS announced that theme for the year with its BG Group decision in March and federal and state courts around the country ran with it. [Warning: this post is a doozy. Get
Do you remember Balki’s Dance of Joy from the TV show Perfect Strangers? That is what I am doing today. Editors of the ABA Journal announced yesterday they have selected ArbitrationNation as one of the top 100 best blogs for a legal audience for the third straight year (out of 4,000+ legal blogs). I am
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