Law Commons^™

Consumers Want To Be In Europe; Corporations Want To Be In The U.S.: How To Reform Mandatory Consumer Arbitration Agreements To Be Fair To Both Parties, Kelly Parfitt

Kelly Parfitt

Arbitration is a popular method of resolving legal disputes between businesses. However, in the last few years, corporations have begun putting mandatory consumer arbitration agreements in small print on sales contracts and receipts for consumer goods, credit cards, and mortgages. Consumers are forced to pay fees much higher than court costs, depending on the case. An arbitrator will do hundreds of cases with the same corporations, be familiar with and even in some cases be affiliated with the corporation. This system results in the overwhelming majority of cases being won by corporations. But in the European Union, consumers are given …

Labor And Employment Law, Vijay K. Mago, Nancy B. Sasser, Allison M. Perry

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Arbitration In Argentina, Felipe Eduardo Zabalza, Martín Torres Girotti

Felipe Eduardo Zabalza

The article is an analysis of arbitration law and procedures in Argentina, as well as recent decisions by the Courts.

Collective Bargaining Agreements In Discrimination Cases: Forum Shopping Their Way Into A New York District Court Near You!, George Klidonas

George Klidonas

There has recently been a divergence of opinion between the state courts and the district courts in New York on the issue of whether a unionized employee must arbitrate discrimination claims in light of a collective bargaining agreement mandating alternative dispute resolution. The problem that New York is faced with is that the New York courts recently failed to properly delineate a standard of what a clear and unmistakable waiver. Furthermore this "split" between the federal and state courts with regards to these arbitration provisions will cause forum shopping by claimants, heavily favoring federal courts. A trilogy of Supreme Court …

Contract Adjudication In A Collaborative Economy, Matthew C. Jennejohn

Matthew C Jennejohn

In order to explore the debate between contextualist versus formalist contract interpretation, this article examines dispute resolution procedures in a novel class of contracts: agreements governing inter-firm collaboration. Analysis of these contracts reveals two phenomena: first, agreements governing collaboration include arbitration clauses more frequently than other commercial contracts; and second, these agreements routinely situate arbitration at the summit of complex escalation procedures. These observations raise, in turn, the following inter-related questions: first, why do collaborators avoid litigation; and second, what makes escalated and private dispute resolution appropriate?

The article’s central claim is that litigation is shunned because contemporary contextualist contract …

International Rule Of Law And Constitutional Justice In International Investment Law And Arbitration, Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Judicial administration of justice through reasoned interpretation, application and clarification of legal principles and rules is among the oldest paradigms of constitutional justice. The principles of procedural justice underlying investor-state arbitration remain controversial, especially if confidentiality and party autonomy governing commercial arbitration risk neglecting adversely affected third parties and public interests. There are also concerns that rule-following and formal equality of foreign investors and home states may not ensure substantive justice in the settlement of investment disputes unless arbitrators and courts take more seriously their customary law obligation of settling disputes in conformity with human rights obligations of governments and …

When Procedure Moonlights As Reason, There Is Nothing Left To Abuse, Matthew E. Terry

Journal of Dispute Resolution

In Greenstreet v. Social Security Administration, when the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals could not discern exactly what basis upon which an arbitrator acted, it leapt past any presumption in favor of the arbitrator's discretion and found that what an arbitrator did not do was an abuse of his decision-making volition, just as an act beyond his prescriptive powers would have been an abuse of discretion. So, in attempting to weed out the arbitrariness in the arbitration processes that decide workplace punishments, the court heaped needless and unreasoned process squarely into the arbitrator's path, thereby greatly lessening the amount of …

Duty Of Fair Representation Jurisprudential Reform: The Need To Adjudicate Disputes In Internal Union Review Tribunals And The Forgotten Remedy Of Re-Arbitration, Mitchell H. Rubinstein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

One of the best kept secrets in American labor law is that duty of fair representation jurisprudence simply does not work. It does not work for plaintiff union members because they must satisfy a close-to-impossible burden of proof and have a short statute of limitations window in which to assert their claim. It does not work for defendant unions because they are often forced to file pointless grievances in order to avoid the cost of litigation. It does not work for defendant employers because they are often brought into these lawsuits because they have the "deep pockets."

This Article makes …

A Fighting Chance: The Proposed Servicemembers Access To Justice Act & Its Potential Effects On Binding Arbitration Agreements, Sean M. Hardy

Sean M Hardy

No abstract provided.

Personal Autonomy And Vacatur After Hall Street, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

This article analyzes the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Hall Street Associates v. Mattel, Inc., 128 S.Ct. 1396 (2008), in which the Court said that arbitration parties may not contract for substantive judicial review of arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act. The article contends that Hall Street Associates was rightly decided as a matter of dispute resolution process characteristics and values theory because it preserves arbitration’s central virtue of finality. It further argues that the Court’s insistence on the exclusivity of the FAA’s statutory grounds for vacatur should spell the end of the so-called “non-statutory” grounds …

An Opportunity Lost: The Supreme Court’S Failure To Recognize The Implications Of Its Holding In Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. V. Mattel, Inc., Eric S. Chafetz

Eric S. Chafetz

The Supreme Court of the United States, in Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc., 128 S.Ct. 1396 (2008), finally addressed whether parties can contract to expand the judicial review provisions in sections 10 and 11 of Article 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), which governs domestic arbitration awards. Although the Supreme Court resolved this specific issue in the negative, its analysis was incomplete, as it did not recognize how the meaning of the language included in section 9 of Article 1 of the FAA was very similar to that in section 207 of Article 2 of the FAA. …

Recent Private International Law Developments Before The Supreme Court Of Canada, Antonin I. Pribetic

Antonin I. Pribetic

A trilogy of interesting cases involving private international law recently wended their way to the Supreme Court of Canada: (1) King v. Drabinsky (an Ontario case addressing the applicability of the Charter in respect of the enforcement of a foreign judgment); (2) Teck Cominco Metals Ltd. v. Lloyd's Underwriters (a British Columbia case involving declaratory relief in the context of parallel proceedings and forum non conveniens); and (3) Yugraneft v. Rexx Management Corporation (an Alberta case which affirmed that the two-year limitation period under s.3 of Alberta's Limitations Act, governs when a party seeks the recognition and enforcement in Alberta …

International Arbitrary Arbitrator In Cas: An Uphill Battle Against Sports Organizations’ Corruption, Jae Soog Lee

Jae Soog Lee

No abstract provided.

Speaker, “Process And Pitfalls Of Confirming Piskei Din As Arbitration Awards”, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.

The Crumbled Difference Between Legal And Illegal Arbitration Awards: Hall Street Associates And The Waning Public Policy Exception, Jonathan A. Marcantel

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

The Sounds Of Silence: Are U.S. Arbitrators Creating Internationally Enforceable Awards When Ordering Class Arbitration In Cases Of Contractual Silence Or Ambiguity?, S. I. Strong

Michigan Journal of International Law

Before outlining the structure of this Article, it is useful to clarify two matters regarding definitions and scope. First, in the context of this Article, an "international class award" is an award resulting from an international class arbitration. There are three different types of international class arbitrations: (1) a class arbitration that includes at least one defendant from a country other than the seat of the arbitration, which means that enforcement of an award will have international implications; (2) a class arbitration that involves defendants that may be based in the arbitral forum but that also hold significant foreign assets …

Solutions For Disputes Over Intellectual Property Between Taiwan And China – Analyzing Arbitration, Szu-Chou Peng, Fu-Jung Wu

Barry Law Review

Increasing business transactions between Taiwan and China have caused international intellectual property disputes to become a new and serious problem for Taiwanese businessmen who have direct and indirect investments in trade. In order to solve this problem, Taiwan and China sequentially set special regulations. For example, section 74 of the Act Governing Relations between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area was enacted by the government of Taiwan to recognize China’s civil arbitration procedures. On July 23, 2004, China established the Regulations of the Supreme People’s Court Regarding the People’s Courts’ Recognition of the Civil Judgments Rendered by …

Automatic Outs: Salary Arbitration In Nippon Professional Baseball, David L. Snyder

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Play Ball? An Analysis Of Final-Offer Arbitration, Its Use In Major League Baseball And Its Potential Applicability To European Football Wage And Transfer Disputes, Josh Chetwynd

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Joint Study Panel On Transparency In International Commercial Arbitration, John R. Crook

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

Thanks to Professor Louise Ellen Teitz, and to the ILA and ASIL for initiating this joint study panel. Our topic brings to mind the tale of the blind men and the elephant.

Deconstructing Public Policy: International Arbitration Law And The Enforcement Of Foreign Awards In India, Aditya Swarup

Aditya Swarup

No abstract provided.

Is Three A Crowd?: Neutrality, Partiality And Partisanship In The Context Of Tripartite Arbitrations, Sean-Patrick Wilson, David J. Mclean

Sean-Patrick Wilson

Despite the widespread usage of party-appointed tripartite arbitration, for some time there has been confusion and concern among academics, courts, parties and arbitrators about the proper role of neutrality in tripartite structure. For example, is it legally permissible for party-appointed arbitrators to be partial? What difference, if any, exists between terms such as “partial,” “partisan” and “non-neutral”? How do we reconcile the Federal Arbitration Act’s ban on “evident partiality” with the concept of having non-neutral arbitrators? Unfortunately, neither Congress nor the Supreme Court has delineated fully the concept of neutrality of party-appointed arbitrators, and the case law among the circuit …

Law & Globalization, Giovanni Iudica

Bocconi Legal Papers

This article explores the position of law vis-à-vis the complex phenomenon of globalization. It begins by defining globalization as the change brought about by the onset of market economy and by the technological revolution of the twentieth century. The article goes on to sketch a short history of the institutions which globalization has had the greatest destabilizing impact on: the national State and—for civil law jurisdictions—codifications. The declining role of States (and their codes) is then presented as the main reason for the enhanced importance of lex mercatoria in regulating international exchanges. This change translates, in practice, in the increased …

Arguments In Favor Of The Triumph Of Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

Arbitration is not just another trial procedure. It epitomizes a practical understanding of the purpose and value of adjudicatory procedures. It poses a substantial challenge to adversarial litigation by exposing its underlying irrationality and its destructive impact upon society. It guarantees the rule of law domestically and internationally through affordable access, expedited proceedings, expertise, and bridging the gap between national legal systems. It is a valuable institution that should not become a pawn in the tired and unimaginative political discourse that substitutes 'talking points' for genuine reflection and debate. The gravamen of the current attack on arbitration is not the …

Building The Civilization Of Arbitration - Introduction, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court's work product has generated a large and growing arbitration bar. It also has finally begun to stimulate a greater volume of academic activity on the topic of arbitration. The work of legal practitioners and academics,along with the courts' decisional law, are "Building a Civilization of Arbitration" that codifies advances and grapples with the controversial aspects of law-in-the making.The Penn State Dickinson School of Law takes great pride in welcoming a distinguished group of lawyers and law teachers to the pages of its Law Review.They are the leaders in the field of arbitration. Their contributions identify the …

Judicial Approbation In Building The Civilization Of Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

This article describes and assesses the work of three national courts in regard to arbitration. The English experience demonstrates that judicial diffidence toward arbitration and concomitant reverence for the cohesion of substantive law can hamper the acceptance and function of arbitration within the legal system. The French and American experiences attest to a contradistinctive use of judicial authority in regard to arbitration. In both legal systems, the courts have been instrumental to the elaboration of a receptive and accommodating law on arbitration. In these legal systems, legislative enactments are used as a springboard for developing a judicial policy and decisional …

Ica And The Writing Requirement: Following Modern Trends Towards Liberalization Or Are We Stuck In 1958?, Jack Graves

Scholarly Works

Article 7 of the Model Law was revised in 2006 to liberalize any requirements of form, consistent with modern commercial practices and modern legal trends reflected in national laws. To the extent adopted by national legislatures, either of the two available options under this revision will effectively eliminate any requirement of a “record of consent,” thus making arbitration agreements more easily enforceable in the adopting jurisdiction. However, any such revision of national laws on arbitration based on the revisions of Article 7 of the Model Law will not necessarily have any effect on enforcement of awards in other jurisdictions under …

Horse Sense And High Competition: Procedural Concerns In Equestrian Doping Arbitration, Holly Rudolph

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Is Arbitration Under Attack?: Exploring The Recent Judicial Skepticism Of The Class Arbitration Waiver And Innovative Solutions To The Unsettled Legal Landscape, Ramona L. Lampley

Faculty Articles

Courts have become increasingly likely in recent years to find class arbitration waivers in consumer product sales unenforceable due to the lack of incentives for consumers and their attorneys to recover for "low value" claims. This article explores the history of the unconscionability and vindication-of-statutory rights doctrines invoked by those courts. It then analyzes the progression of the class arbitration waiver in the consumer products industry, with emphasis on the third-generation "incentivizing" agreement. This "incentivizing" agreement, if viewed at the time of the purchase agreement, can be mutually beneficial to seller and consumer. Some consumers may wish to forego the …

Fixing The Mandatory Arbitration Problem: We Need The Arbitration Fairness Act Of 2009, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.