Law Commons^™

Between The Hash Marks: The Absolute Power The Nfl’S Collective Bargaining Agreement Grants Its Commissioner, Eric L. Einhorn

Brooklyn Law Review

The National Football League has recently faced an onslaught of public criticism stemming from its handling of disciplinary matters over the last few years. This note engages in a comparative analysis of the disciplinary processes of the four major professional sports leagues, the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), and National Hockey League (NHL), to determine why Commissioner Goodell’s disciplinary decisions have received such public criticism and have been challenged by the National Football League Players Association. While examining the cases of Tom Brady and Adrian Peterson, this note will address the question of …

The Customer's Nonwaivable Right To Choose Arbitration In The Securities Industry, Jill I. Gross

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Arbitration has been the predominant form of dispute resolution in the securities industry since the 1980s. Virtually all brokerage firms include predispute arbitration agreements (PDAAs) in their retail customer contracts, and have successfully fought off challenges to their validity. Additionally, the industry has long mandated that firms submit to arbitration at the demand of a customer, even in the absence of a PDAA.

More recently, however, brokerage firms have been arguing that forum selection clauses in their agreements with sophisticated customers (such as institutional investors and issuers) supersede firms’ duty to arbitrate under FINRA Rule 12200. Circuit courts currently are …

The Problem With Frand: How The Licensing Commitments Of Standard-Setting Organizations Result In The Misvaluing Of Patents, David Arsego

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Standard-setting organizations (SSOs) are bodies that oversee the development of technical standards. Technical standards are common technological designs that are used across a variety of platforms, for instance LTE, which is utilized throughout the mobile phone industry. Members of SSOs contribute different pieces of technology to an ultimate design, and if a patent covers the technology, it is called a standard-essential patent (SEP). SSOs require their members to license these patents to each other on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms. This Note analyzes the FRAND requirement and the different ways that courts and private parties interpret it. The ambiguity …