This is my 290th post at ArbitrationNation and today I celebrate six years of blogging.  Woo hoo — that’s longer than most celebrity marriages!  In honor of the occasion, here are updates on six of the hottest issues in arbitration law so far this year.

  1. Agency regulation of arbitration agreements.  On the one hand, the

In January of 2016, SCOTUS granted review of an arbitration case from Hawaii, but summarily vacated and remanded it without analysis.  (Unless you consider “Please read DIRECTV” substantive analysis.)  Here’s the risk of that course of action: Hawaii can refuse to change its mind.

Last month, in Narayan v. The Ritz-Carlton Development Co., 2017

On October 28, the Supreme Court granted a cert petition in a case in which the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to enforce arbitration agreements in nursing home agreements.  (Kentucky recently topped my list of states hostile to arbitration precisely because of the language in the decision that will be reviewed…)

In Kindred Nursing Centers Limited

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

Just under the wire, SCOTUS released an arbitration opinion today, ensuring that 2015 would continue the string of years with cases interpreting the Federal Arbitration Act.  In DIRECTV v. Imburgia, the Supreme Court found that California’s interpretation of an arbitration clause was preempted by the FAA.  DIRECTV is a 6-3 decision, with Justice Kagan

The U.S. Supreme Court has been knocking out blockbuster arbitration opinions annually in recent years.  2010?  Stolt-Nielsen and Rent-a-Center.  2011?  Concepcion.  2012? CompuCredit (Okay, that does not qualify as a blockbuster.) 2013? AmEx and Sutter.  At this point, SCOTUS has accepted roughly half of the cases it will hear this year, and