I can’t believe we’re more than a week into August!  I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m going to have to say goodbye to summer too soon.   I love fall, so maybe that’s not so bad?

Anyway, speaking of farewells, this week we get a back-to-the-basics refresher from the Eleventh Circuit on

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

Parties who ask a court to compel arbitration of all the plaintiff’s claims have a decision to make: should they ask the court to stay the claims or dismiss them (if it finds them arbitrable)?   After noting that the federal courts of appeal are “about evenly divided” on that question, the Second Circuit held that

In answer to the proverbial question “how much litigation waives the right to arbitrate?,” the Third Circuit has responded that ten months does the trick, if the party seeking arbitration has engaged in significant motion practice, regardless of whether any discovery was exchanged. In re Pharmacy Benefit Managers Antitrust Litig., __ F.3d __, 2012

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