Arbitration Enforcement, Proceedings

A May 16 Supreme Court ruling makes it almost impossible to appeal a federal court ruling enforcing an arbitration provision. This article explains not only the ruling’s negative consequences, but also, surprisingly, the advantages the ruling presents for consumers and workers. The article also sets out five approaches still available to reverse a decision enforcing an arbitration provision despite the Supreme Court ruling.

NCLC's new Arbitration Practice Checklist is a free tool that lists 75 ways to defeat an arbitration requirement. A new NCLC Digital Library article aggregates highlights from the new checklist. The article explains 12 lesser-known ways to defeat an arbitration requirement, 12 challenges that apply more often than expected, and the three biggest errors in challenging an arbitration requirement. Links are provided to this and ten other free practice checklists from NCLC.

Much consumer litigation today must deal with arbitration requirements. This arbitration litigation cheat sheet provides a quick listing of consumer options when faced with an arbitration demand—including both options to challenge the enforceability of the arbitration requirement as well as how to proceed in arbitration if that is the only remaining or even preferred option.

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Coinbase creates another impediment to consumer litigation: even when a consumer defeats an arbitration requirement, if the company then pursues an interlocutory appeal of that ruling, discovery and other proceedings are automatically put on hold until that appeal is resolved. This article offers five approaches to avoid or ameliorate the effect of this new obstacle to consumer litigation handed down by the Supreme Court.

On May 22, the Supreme Court overruled nine circuits in holding that a defendant’s waiver of arbitration must be treated like any other contractual right. No showing of prejudice to the plaintiff need be shown. This article examines the decision and arbitration waiver law generally. Importantly, also considered are the decision’s implications to assist a broad array of challenges to arbitration requirements.

Increasingly, consumers forced into arbitration seek to avail themselves of that process, but are frustrated by the defendant’s refusal to pay or otherwise participate in the proceeding. This article describes a state supreme court’s solution—the consumer can then go to court.

This article examines three June actions showing how state law can help consumers respond to arbitration clauses: a Ninth Circuit ruling that public injunctive relief provided by a state statute must be available either in court or in arbitration, a state supreme court’s limit as to when non-parties can enforce arbitration agreements, and a Vermont statute helping consumers challenge unconscionable arbitration clauses.

Increasingly, companies seek to bind consumers to arbitration, consent to robocalls, and other terms and conditions through the consumer’s actions on a website. This article reviews an important January court decision, describes surprising facts about bots and “click farms,” and sets out a series of practical steps to challenge consumer assent to terms found on a website.Challenging Electronic Assent to Arbitration, Robocalls, and More

What you need to know about the new CFPB proposal and seven other new limits on forced arbitration, summarized in this article.

On December 14, the Supreme Court issued its decision in DirecTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, reversing a California Court of Appeals decision from last year. The case involved a clause in DirecTV’s consumer arbitration agreement that expressly prohibited class actions in arbitration but also provided that, “[i]f . . . the laws of your state would find this agreement to dispense with class arbitration...