Welcome back to ArbitrationNation after a pandemic and protests hiatus.  I hope that you and your families are safe and that you’re confronting and coping with the injustices of our world.

I’m glad to have a good reason to write about arbitration again.  I’ve got a boatload of arbitration developments and cases to catch up

Four weeks ago, the boundary between public enforcement and private dispute resolution became more blurred.  On September 4, the Justice Department announced that it had agreed to binding arbitration on the key issue in a current merger case—the market definition.

The enforcement action is garden variety.  It challenges Novelis Inc.’s proposed acquisition of Aleris Corporation. 

The Fifth Circuit just deepened (and confused) a Circuit split over the question of who decides whether an arbitration agreement permits class proceedings.  See 20/20 Communications, Incorporated v. Crawford, 2019 WL 3281412 (5th Cir. July 22, 2019).

Liz has written about the split herehere, and here.  (You might also recall

So, remember when we talked about Just How Small the Bullseye Is for Challenging a Delegation Clause a few weeks ago?  Apparently, the target is small but not necessarily as unhittable as I suggested.

You might recall that in that earlier post we were looking at a Missouri Supreme Court decision, State Ex Rel. Newberry