Many people may not know what an arbitration agreement is, but chances are they have probably signed one. "Have you ever bought an appliance with a major credit card? Did you look at the back of the receipt? You probably just signed a contract of arbitration," explained Jeff Stewart, an attorney. This, of course, isn't the only type of arbitration agreement. There are different types in the labor and commercial sector. read

Perz said an independent expert he hired concluded the car had probably been submerged in water, causing the electrics to fail and rotting the vehicle’s frame with rust. Perz decided he couldn’t in good faith sell it to recoup his money. So he hired a lawyer. That’s when he learned that he couldn’t take Mossy to court. “My lawyer said I had to go to to arbitration,” Perz said. “I didn’t know even what that was.” read

Lawyers are hoping for more consistent rules for international arbitration across Canada as plans are in the works to smooth out differences between the provinces and territories.  A working group is looking into creating consistent laws throughout the country on issues from the power of arbitral tribunals to make ex parte orders to whether it’s appropriate to have the same limitation periods everywhere in Canada.  It’s a step toward making Canada an “arbitration-friendly” country, says Gerald Ghikas, a commercial arbitration lawyer at Vancouver Arbitration Chambers who’s also chairman of a working group that’s proposing the changes. read

The Florida Supreme Court recently made it more difficult for the families of wrongful death victims to have their cases heard in court. In February, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a mandatory arbitration agreement signed by an elderly nursing home patient extended to, and was binding on, his estate and heirs. Many states refuse to enforce binding arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts, as they can be unconscionably biased in favor of the nursing home, but the justices refused to make such a declaration in this case. read

After AT&T somehow convinced the U.S. Supreme Court that a couple of sentences buried toward the end of a contract that maybe .05% of customers ever think about reading was all that was needed to preempt class-action lawsuits, many large companies have rushed to pack their user agreements and licenses with clauses that force customers into arbitration. But, stuck in a battle with an industry regulator, the folks at Charles Schwab have decided to go another way, announcing that they have gotten rid of their arbitration clause… for now. read

Arbitration, and not litigation, is the driving force behind rules that federal regulators hope will settle simmering disputes between freight railroads and shippers, including coal plant operators.

The Surface Transportation Board announced the policies May 13, after nearly three years of studying prolonged rate challenge cases. “Changes to the arbitration rules are intended to consolidate and simplify formerly separate arbitration procedures and to encourage greater use of arbitration,” the board said. read

Amazon.com’s response to two former sellers complaining about tied-up payments can be summed up as: We’ll see you in arbitration.  Seattle-based Amazon, in a 28-page document filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, asks Judge Marsha Pechman to move the case to arbitration. The two sellers claimed in a lawsuit filed in March that Amazon refused to pay them for more than 90 days after it shuttered their accounts. They want full restitution of “monies wrongfully obtained,” plus interest and other unspecified damages.

In its response, Amazon noted that when the plaintiffs signed up to sell products on its website they agreed to arbitrate any disputes.  The suit, which seeks class-action status, says Amazon routinely holds sellers’ money longer than allowed to rack up interest and “reap many tens of millions of dollars annually.” read

As discussed by the American Association for Justice, the new law seeks to end the abusive practice of so many large corporations, including nursing home conglomerates, that seek to insulate themselves from legal accountability with forced arbitration. As the AAJ summarized, the law is critically needed, because when it comes to arbitration, “The process is secretive, costly and rigged so that corporations cannot be held accountable. By removing access to justice, it grants corporations a license to steal and violate the law.” read

A reform that was supposed to help the average American and cut the costs of litigation ended up being hijacked by the large and powerful. Now legislation has been introduced in Washington to return the effort to something resembling its original goals. read

In Continental Sales Ltd v R Shipping Inc., the Lagos Court of Appeal ruled that serving an arbitration notice by email constitutes effective service of the arbitration notice under the English Arbitration Act 1996, for the purposes of registering and enforcing a foreign arbitral award in Nigeria. read

What do the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (with over 200 organizational members), Consumers Union (publisher of Consumer Reports), the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, the National Women’s Law Center, and the Center for Justice & Democracy, have in common? Many good things, of course, but yesterday, they were all among a boatload of organizations signing a letter supporting the introduction of the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2013. This legislation would end forced arbitration. read

I have long railed against the insidious system known as mandatory arbitration which is foisted upon investors who deal with brokers. I testified about the unfairness of this system before a congressional sub-committee. I co-authored a study showing the dismal results for investors when they attempted to recover losses caused by the misconduct of their brokers. It's not surprising that a comprehensive study found most participants in these arbitrations believed the sessions were biased and unfair. read

A group of 37 federal lawmakers urged U.S. securities regulators to prohibit Wall Street brokers from forcing customers to sign away their legal right to sue. read

A previously vacated award of $1.4 million to a former Thomas Kinkade artwork dealer was not revived on appeal this month due to the same irregularities in the arbitration process that had caused a federal district court to reject the award in 2010. read

In accordance with the Sandy Recovery and Improvement Act, which was signed into law by President Obama last January, FEMA is planning to set up a pilot program to organize approximately 50 to 75 arbitrations to try to resolve disputes between applicants for disaster assistance (legitimately valued at $1 million or more) and FEMA. read

The three strippers who filed a class action lawsuit against their former employer have agreed to participate in arbitration. read

SEC member Luis Aguilar was on the right track last week when he told an audience at the North American Securities Administrators Association Inc. that investors should not be forced into mandatory-arbitration agreements when they sign on with a broker or investment adviser. By requiring clients to agree to arbitration as the only way to settle disputes, firms are unnecessarily eliminating an important avenue of redress that is available to nearly every other class of consumer. read

The new rule proposed by the FINRA would do away with the need to select an arbitration panel, but would allow parties to disputes to select arbitrators from three lists. One list will have the names of 10 people competent to chair the arbitration panel. Another list will have the names of 10 people who are public arbitrators and do not have any connection to the securities and finance industry, and the third list will have the names of 10 persons who can function as arbitrators, but also have connections to Wall Street. read

An arbitration centre must speedily redress cases not just of the rich and the corporate houses but also the common man, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Altamas Kabir says. read

There are times when nursing home neglect attorneys can successfully challenge an arbitration clause and allow a traditional lawsuit to be brought. read

The International Mediation Institute (IMI), a body which develops global professional standards for those involved in collaborative dispute resolution, has recently published the results of an 8 week survey regarding the approaches and expectations of in-house counsel in relation to arbitration and mediation. read

A top U.S. securities regulator on Tuesday urged the government to consider adopting new rules that would prohibit or restrict brokerages and advisers from forcing customers to sign away their right to sue. read

Ladies and gentlemen, have you read the fine print lately? You may no longer have the right to go to court if something goes terribly wrong. read

A Senate committee in Salem, Ore., hears arguments for SB 747, a bill that could keep officers fired for excessive force from coming back through arbitration read

An en banc panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a dispute between former students and a bank that held their student loans was subject to arbitration. The ruling could have broad implications, including in employment disputes. read

If the law is to stay relevant to the challenges presented by global and online business, the system must be reinvented to adapt to the new realities of a networked world. read

An International Survey on Dispute Resolution in Technology Transactions conducted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center reveals that less than 2% of technology agreements lead to formal dispute proceedings, but that these proceedings are generally costly and time-consuming. read

The Supreme Court took up the question of arbitration again yesterday in the case of Oxford Health Plans vs. Sutter, and once again the conservative justices seemed skeptical that the process designed to keep disputes out of court should be open to class actions at all. read

Although suitable for highly technical commercial cases, arbiters are not a ‘one size fit all’ solution. read

The arbitration business is growing in Canada, and this year’s Chambers Global list of Canadian top arbitrators demonstrates that Canada is home to some of the world’s best. read

In Compton v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, No. B236669 (2d Dist. Mar. 19, 2013), a divided panel of the Second District Court of Appeal reversed the Los Angeles Superior Court’s order compelling arbitration of her wage-and-hour class action complaint. read

International arbitration has become the norm for resolving international commercial disputes. Commercial parties engaged in cross-border business opt for international arbitration over proceeding through domestic courts due to perceived advantages of efficiency, the ability to appoint a specialized arbitrator and finality. However, it is increasingly important that parties understand the impact that the arbitration process and the venue of the arbitration have on recourse available in the event one or both of the parties are dissatisfied with the arbitral award. read

t is generally assumed as a matter of commercial dealings that arbitration proceedings will be both private and confidential. The first assumption is essentially correct. Arbitrations are private in that third parties who are not a party to the arbitration agreement cannot attend any hearings or play any part in the arbitration proceedings. The second assumption, since the 1990s, is not. read

Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Thursday won a U.S. court order allowing it to send a former employee's gender discrimination claim to arbitration, rather than being forced to defend against her claims in a class action lawsuit. read

A lawyer for IMF chief Christine Lagarde says French investigators have searched her Paris home as part of an inquiry into her role in a $400 million arbitration deal in favor of a tycoon. read

The Israeli and Palestinian Arab business communities have picked Rifat Hisarciklioglu to head the Jerusalem Arbitration Center (JAC), which mediates commercial conflicts between the two sides. read

In a suit alleging negligent care of a resident, the court ruled that the arbitration agreement was not enforceable because the resident never signed it. read

So-called forced arbitration clauses say that in the event of a dispute, you won't be able to file a class-action suit. Instead, your dispute will be settled one-on-one in a private arbitration forum. These clauses are commonly inserted into terms of service agreements, which you must agree to if you want to use the product or service. read

A Texas Court of Appeals recently affirmed an order denying an employer's motion to compel arbitration against an employee who did not speak English. read

The Supreme Court is considering whether to expand on its recent rulings allowing companies to avoid class-action lawsuits by insisting that customers resolve complaints through arbitration. Arbitration requirements have become a standard feature of American life, printed on the back of baseball tickets, in the fine print of cellphone plans and in a wide range of other contracts. Businesses say arbitration reduces legal costs while allowing more claims to be resolved. But consumer advocates say that arbitration increasingly lets companies escape accountability. read

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that could determine the extent to which companies might rely on arbitration clauses to fend off class-action lawsuits. read

MA Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin today rebuked banking and brokerage giant Charles Schwab for a recent change to its customer arbitration agreement which precludes customers from joining in class-action lawsuits. read

All 133 major league baseball players who filed for arbitration settled without a hearing for the first time. Baseball’s previous record low was three hearings, set in 2005 and matched in 2009 and 2011. The high was 35 hearings in 1986. read

What is the legal process for the drafting of the arbitration agreements and the enforcement of arbitral awards? Long-time international arbitrators Constantine Partasides, Alan Redfern, and Martin Hunters sit down with the OUPblog to discuss the latest developments in the field of international arbitration.. read

The reason most investors don’t file for arbitration is that they aren’t aware the system exists. Also, they are not familiar with the rules that govern brokers — at a minimum, they have to make suitable investments for their clients. read

Mr Justice Baker has given judgment in a case in which a consent order was agreed following an arbitration carried out by rabbinical authorities. read

The Florida Supreme Court says contract clauses requiring arbitration to settle related disputes include fraud claims. read

Attorneys in the dispute over Legendary Pictures' removal of three producers from "Godzilla" have agreed that a state court judge should decide a key issue over arbitration in the case. read

The Washington Supreme Court declared binding arbitration agreements in insurance contracts void and unenforceable. The court explained that binding arbitration frustrates legislative intent to protect Washington policyholders' rights to sue insurers in Washington courts for coverage disputes over subjects located, resident or to be performed in Washington. read

Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Friday stood by the decision to send the case of French tycoon Bernard Tapie to arbitration that resulted in him receiving hefty damages five years ago when she was France's finance minister. read

Arguments have closed in the arbitration hearing between the St. Louis Rams and the regional Convention and Visitors Commission, which runs the Edward Jones Dome.
  read

A chain of fitness centers has been dealt a blow by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), where an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) ruled that 24 Hour Fitness USA Inc. committed unfair labor practices by maintaining and enforcing a mandatory arbitration agreement for its new hires, waving their rights to participate in class or collective actions in disputes with their employer. read

Century City litigator William Ginsburg apparently thought it wouldn't be a problem to join an ADR provider while it was conducting an arbitration for one of his medical malpractice cases. The Second District Court of Appeal saw it differently Tuesday, establishing a bright-line rule that a lawyer's membership in the ADR provider deciding his case must be disclosed to the other side. read

The beauty queen from Cranberry also posts a new video explaining some of her actions—including why she called the Miss Universe organization “trashy.” read

Panel Says Arbitrator Must Disclose That Attorney Is Member of Dispute Resolution Agency read

The Philippines is taking its maritime territorial dispute with China to an international arbitration tribunal, the country's foreign minister said Tuesday. read

According to reports, the Karkay company has decided to file an application in the International Court of Arbitration since its two ship-mounted power plants were stopped in Pakistan due to an ongoing investigation in the rental power project scam. read

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) has been handed the task of studying the use of arbitration agreements by banks and other providers of consumer financial products, and everyone has something to say on how it should be conducted. read

Last week a California appeals court invalidated a car dealer's mandatory arbitration and class waiver clause, holding the sales contract's arbitration clause unconscionable and therefore unenforceable to defeat a putative class action. read

Marin General Hospital has won an additional $11 million from Sutter Health in a long-running arbitration, on top of $21.5 million awarded last August. Marin General Hospital CEO Lee Domanico is pictured. read

Under the latest labor deal, the top 22 percent of players by service time with at least two years but less than three are eligible for arbitration. Players and teams are scheduled to swap proposed salaries Friday, with hearings before three-arbitrator panels next month in Phoenix. Most cases settle before they go to hearings. read

As the backlog of cases clogging the courts intensifies, the spotlight continues to shine on Alternative Dispute Resolution as the first means of handling a legal dispute. read

China MediaExpress Holdings Inc., which obtained a U.S. stock listing without an initial public offering by buying a listed company, was a fraudulent enterprise, a Hong Kong arbitration panel ruled, awarding Starr International Co. as much as $77 million in damages.  Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, chief executive officer of CV Starr & Co. Inc. is pictured. read

Can an employee waive the right to pursue an FLSA overtime claim on a collective or class basis? On January 7, 2013, another federal appellate court, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, answered “Yes.” read

The court battle over how far to go renovating the Edward Jones Dome is headed for arbitration this week. At issue in the fight is how fancy does the dome have to become in order to keep up with the top 25 percent of stadiums in the National Football League. read

Customers claim arbitration is not “fair venue” read

Should you include mandatory arbitration for resolving any disputes? Assuming you have the choice, my view is you should only include arbitration if at least one of these four factors are present. read

The conflict between Sudan and South Sudan over the oil-rich region of Abyei and six other disputed areas has brought Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir to Ethiopia in the hope of finding a comprehensive and effective solution to their border disputes. read

Disputes over cotton contracts reached a new high last year, as the global market continued to struggle with the aftereffects of 2011's price spike. read

Lawsuits are expensive and inconvenient, but employee litigation can be even more painful for companies, executives, and managers. Employee lawsuits hamper morale and could encourage other employees to follow with their own lawsuits. This kind of litigation can also expose information that companies would rather keep quiet. Additionally, such litigation can generate nasty PR. read

The U.S. Supreme Court recently reaffirmed a long-standing rule that an arbitrator must decide the validity of the terms contained in any employment contract or agreement containing a valid arbitration clause. read

Katusha has taken its argument with the UCI over its WorldTour exclusion to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The Russian squad — which includes the top-ranked rider in the world, Joaquim Rodríguez — was not among the 18 teams granted WorldTour status on Monday. read

In a beauty of a $5 million legal win, Donald Trump has emerged victorious in his ugly battle with Miss USA hopeful Sheena Monnin, who claimed the pageant was “fixed” and “trashy.” read

In the same way parties choose a law to apply to their contract and a procedural law to apply to any future arbitration, parties to international contracts should expressly choose a law to govern an arbitration agreement contained in a contract. read

To most people (including most lawyers), the world of international arbitration is shrouded in a veil of mystery. The widely-held perception of our practice is the stuff that movies are made of — lawyers traveling around the world to exotic countries, meeting with officials from foreign governments and multi-national corporations, and representing them before international tribunals in high-stakes cases. In reality, our practice is much more sobering. read

Hong Kong is a legally and economically autonomous area of China. It has a common law system which upholds the rule of law and is a leading international arbitration centre for the region. read

Sudan's appeal against the decision to strip them of World Cup points has been rejected but they are taking the matter to arbitration, FIFA said on Wednesday. Sudan's 2-0 World Cup qualifying win over Zambia in June was overturned by FIFA's disciplinary committee and a 3-0 win awarded to the African champions instead after Sudan were found to have fielded an ineligible player. read

The five judges of Delaware's Court of Chancery have delivered their verdict on a federal judge: She blew it when she ruled their secret arbitration hearings were unconstitutional and shut them down. read

This article outlines the arbitration institutions and rules that are most commonly used in Asia and comments on some of their differences. read

In a succinct opinion issued on November 26, 2012, the Supreme Court delivered a stern warning to state courts that fail to enforce arbitration clauses accompanying noncompetition agreements. read

Chrysler took quick action two years ago after television news reports of workers at its Jefferson North plant in Detroit who were drinking beer or smoking marijuana on lunch breaks against factory policies. It fired 13 of them. But now they're back on the job, having won an arbitration decision that reinstated them to their union jobs. read

Chinese labour arbitrators have ruled against the father of a Foxconn worker brain-damaged in a factory accident in southern China, in a case that puts more attention on the labour practices of Apple's largest contract manufacturer. read

A New York state judge has ruled he has no jurisdiction to enforce a nearly $500,000 arbitration award, saying the underlying claims brought by a customer against a brokerage firm appeared to be based on violations of federal securities law. read

What you may not know is that there’s a phrase for forcing the two sides to agree – mandatory arbitration. And Congress could require it, not just for the NHL, but for other pro sports leagues. read

Employers that utilize arbitration agreements just received a major vote of confidence from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). In Nitro-Lift Technologies, LLC v. Eddie Lee Howard, et al., the SCOTUS ruled that valid arbitration agreements may trump conflicting state law. read

Nokia sued BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. in California to enforce an international arbitration award governing the sale of WLAN- compliant phones. read

Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin and Oleg Deripaska’s United Co. Rusal are heading toward a more than $1 billion arbitration case as they battle over rights at Norilsk Nickel, according to four people with knowledge of talks. read

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. plans to warn parties in its arbitration hearings against using electronic devices to secretly record and transmit the proceedings. read

Woe unto everyone possessed of the notion that state courts have the power to undo arbitration clauses on public policy grounds. read

A study found that many banks restrict checking account holders' ability to take disputes to court. read

Steps set out in a contract to be taken before the parties can proceed to arbitration must be clear and unequivocal before the court can hold that a tribunal was not entitled to hear a claim, the High Court has ruled. read

Just say "mandatory arbitration" a couple of times. It may make you feel a little drowsy. But if you ever find yourself in a dispute with your bank or other financial services provider, those two words could determine your chances of successfully resolving it. read

Be careful what you sign the next time to you buy a car. You could be giving up your legal rights. The Consumer Law Group says many people sign an Arbitration Clause and don't even know it. They have waived their right to a trial, waived their right to confront the dealership in court and then they are forced into this arbitration system where the arbitrator is chosen by the dealership. read

Mediation and arbitration are each forms of alternative dispute resolution. Each are confidential proceedings, are more informal than litigation, use a third party to oversee the proceedings, and may result in an enforceable resolution. The biggest difference between mediation and arbitration is that an arbitrator decides the dispute, usually in the form of a binding decision. In mediation, the mediator does not make binding decisions. In mediation, there is only a resolution if the parties agree to settle. read

Employers that include arbitration agreements in their employee handbooks may be making a mistake if they also declare that the handbook itself isn’t a contract. read

Low rates of pay to arbitrators in China are forcing top lawyers to reject work or spend a limited amount of time on cases, according to practitioners in the market. read

Apple Inc. and Google Inc. swapped a series of letters earlier this month discussing potential arbitration for some patents, according to a recent court filing. read