Patent Infringement: Successful Litigation Stays the "Course"
Defendant SemGroup Corp. and intervenor-defendant Cypress Environmental Management-TIR appealed an Oklahoma district court order denying their motions to compel arbitration. The plaintiff, Robert Ferrell, was a Cypress...more
This week, the Ninth Circuit addresses the ability of non-parties to invoke arbitration agreements, and refreshes its law on the applicability of Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity in the arbitration context. KIM NGO...more
Plaintiffs Darrell Reeves and James King worked at Enterprise Products Partners through separate third-party staffing companies. Each plaintiff had a separate employment contract with his respective staffing company, which...more
The Second Circuit recently affirmed the denial of motions to compel arbitration filed by, inter alia, the Trump Corp. and a nonparty from whom the plaintiffs sought discovery....more
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC (MVP) contracted with U.S. Trinity Energy Services LLC for the construction and installation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline across property in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Trinity...more
Takeaway: The importance of preserving issues for appeal when litigating a case before a trial court – from the outset of the case all the way through post-trial motions – cannot be overstated. As a general matter, a...more
In cases involving contracts between U.S. companies, courts frequently allow a nonsignatory to a contract to enforce an arbitration provision in the contract against a signatory, when the signatory to the contract relies on...more
This week, the Ninth Circuit simultaneously issued two decisions addressing the circumstances in which equitable estoppel can require a plaintiff to arbitrate a claim absent an arbitration agreement with the defendant. In the...more
When can you compel arbitration of a putative class action? The law is developing quickly and still doesn’t provide a crystal clear answer. The Ninth Circuit recently weighed in on two cases examining what happens when the...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently concluded that investment advisor Ruane Cunniff & Goldfarb must face a proposed class action under ERISA Section 502(a)(2) for breach of fiduciary duty relating to its...more
On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals considered in Setty v. Shrinivas Sugandhalaya LLP the question whether non-signatories to an agreement may use state law doctrines, such as equitable...more
The Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently compelled arbitration involving a claim by a plaintiff who had not signed a Comcast subscriber agreement on the ground that the plaintiff had used benefits under the agreement and...more
In a dispute over Uber’s alleged failure to provide a wheelchair-accessible ride-sharing option in New Orleans, the District Court held that, under California law, plaintiffs were not equitably estopped from avoiding...more
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed the denial of a motion to arbitrate where the appellants were not parties to the agreements containing arbitration clauses. The court also concluded that equitable...more
When all was said and done, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on June 1, 2020 in effect that the New York Convention (i.e., the U.N. Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards) and the...more
Sometimes compelling arbitration is simple. If the parties to a dispute signed an agreement to arbitrate, a signatory would normally be able to use that agreement as a basis to move to compel arbitration pursuant to the...more
Can your business be compelled to defend an international arbitration brought by an entity with whom you never agreed to arbitrate? On June 1, 2020, a unanimous United States Supreme Court answered this question in the...more
In a putative class action against Amazon, Nicosia v. Amazon.com, Inc., the Second Circuit recently issued a ruling (“Nicosia II”) sending the named plaintiff’s claims to arbitration based on an arbitration clause contained...more
On June 1, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a unanimous opinion regarding the relationship between domestic equitable estoppel and the enforcement of arbitration agreements. In GE Energy Power Conversion France SAS,...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that equitable estoppel doctrines can be invoked by non-signatories seeking to compel arbitration under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards....more
In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that a non-signatory to an agreement requiring arbitration for disputes might be able to compel arbitration under state law equitable estoppel arguments. The...more
On June 1, 2020 the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in GE Energy Power Conversion Fr. SAS, Corp. v. Outokumpu Stainless USA, LLC, No. 18-1048, 2020 WL 2814297 (U.S. June 1, 2020), holding that the...more
On June 1, 2020, the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision by Justice Thomas, held that allowing non-signatories to an arbitration agreement to compel arbitration under the Convention on the Recognition and...more
On June 1, the U.S. Supreme Court in GE Energy Power Conversion France SAS v. Outokumpu Stainless USA, LLC, 590 U.S. ___ (June 1, 2020) unanimously held that a non-party may enforce an international arbitration agreement...more
For the first time in six years, the U.S. Supreme Court focused its attention upon the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards of 1958, commonly referred to as the “New York Convention,” to...more