Last week, a group of consumer advocate organizations filed a Petition for Rulemaking with the CFPB that would prohibit the use of pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer contracts in favor of arbitration clauses that...more
9/19/2023
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) ,
Petition for Rulemaking ,
Pre-Dispute Arbitration ,
Proposed Regulation
Earlier last week, a group of consumer advocate organizations filed a Petition for Rulemaking with the CFPB that would prohibit the use of pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer contracts in favor of arbitration clauses...more
9/18/2023
/ Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Congressional Review Act ,
Consumer Contracts ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Final Rules ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) ,
Pre-Dispute Arbitration ,
Statutory Authority
Alleging violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), approximately 50,000 Samsung customers filed individual arbitration demands with the American Arbitration Association (AAA) pursuant to an...more
Professor Jeff Sovern recently blogged about the FTC’s June 2023 revisions to its Endorsement Guide. The Guide helps advertisers and endorsers make sure that their advertising using endorsements or testimonials is truthful...more
Professor Jeff Sovern, who recently joined the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law faculty, has recently blogged about a forthcoming Study by academicians at other institutions that will be published in...more
We previously wrote about a Ninth Circuit appeal dealing with the use of bellwether procedures to resolve mass arbitration claims brought by thousands of customers against Verizon Wireless. That appeal remains pending and is...more
8/15/2023
/ Antitrust Violations ,
Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
AT&T Mobility v Concepcion ,
Bellwether Verdicts ,
California ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Motion to Compel ,
Oral Argument ,
SCOTUS ,
Sherman Act ,
Verizon
Last week, Professor Jeff Sovern of St. John’s University School of Law published a blog post discussing a new empirical study by Roseanna Sommers, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, dealing...more
In January 2023, a federal district court in Texas dismissed Michael v. Opportunity Financial, LLC, a putative class action filed in June 2022 claiming that fintech Opportunity Financial, LLC (OppFi), not its out-of-state,...more
We previously blogged about Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that individual employee claims under California’s Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) are subject to...more
7/21/2023
/ Arbitration ,
Article III ,
CA Supreme Court ,
California ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
SCOTUS ,
Standing ,
Uber ,
Viking River Cruises ,
Viking River Cruises Inc v Moriana
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that an appeal of the denial of a motion to compel arbitration automatically stays lower court proceedings pending the outcome of the appeal. The decision in Coinbase,...more
6/26/2023
/ Arbitration ,
Automatic Stay ,
Coinbase ,
Coinbase Inc v Bielski ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Griggs v Provident Disc Co ,
Interlocutory Appeals ,
Motion to Compel ,
Online Platforms ,
Preemption ,
SCOTUS ,
Stays
Our response to Professor Sovern’s article about arbitration opt-outs and so-called “dark patterns” prompted a reply in which he poses two “challenges”: (1) “prove that opt outs benefit consumers by telling us how many...more
For the past decade, Professor Jeff Sovern has criticized companies for including opt out provisions in their consumer arbitration clauses, even though such provisions give consumers freedom of choice by allowing them to...more
Two companion bills titled the “Consumer and Small Business Protection Act” have been introduced in the New York legislature would make sweeping changes to the provisions of the state’s general business law (Section 349)...more
After discussing what mass arbitration is and its growing use for claims against companies in the consumer finance industry, we discuss the factors that make companies most vulnerable to mass arbitration claims. We then...more
Recently, 37 Senators (36 Democrats, one Independent) and 84 members of the House of Representatives (all Democrats), led by Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia, reintroduced the...more
In a recent blog post, Professor Jeff Sovern contends that the case against consumer arbitration has been bolstered by the fact that a lawyer for the “conservative” Competitive Enterprise Institute made positive remarks about...more
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s recent publication of an 80-page report titled “Mass Arbitration Shakedown: Coercing Unjustified Settlements” has fanned the flames on an already heated debate between consumer advocates and...more
In 2014, the New Jersey Supreme Court held in Atalese v. U.S. Legal Services Group, L.P. that in order to be enforceable, arbitration clauses must contain an express waiver of the parties’ right to seek relief in a court of...more
Last week, the Biden Administration released a “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights” (Blueprint), which sets forth five principles intended to “create a shared baseline for fairness for renters in the housing market” and...more
The CFPB has issued a proposed rule to establish a system for the registration of nonbanks subject to CFPB supervision that use “certain terms or conditions that seek to waive consumer rights or other legal protections or...more
Last week, a California federal court granted Google’s motion to compel arbitration of claims asserted by customers who alleged that their Fitbit watches burned their skin. The opinion in Houtchens v. Google found that the...more
Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review whether an appeal of the denial of a motion to compel arbitration automatically stays proceedings in the lower court pending the outcome of the appeal, or whether the lower...more
Earlier this week, we wrote about Verizon’s appeal to the Ninth Circuit from a district court ruling that the bellwether provision in its arbitration clause was unconscionable. Both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the...more
An appeal pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is poised to decide whether an arbitration agreement that requires mass arbitration disputes to be resolved by multiple rounds of bellwether arbitrations...more
The U.S. Department of Education recently announced final regulations, effective July 1, 2023, designed to expand and improve the major student loan discharge programs authorized by the Higher Education Act. Among other...more