A Look at America – Part 3 – The Dynamism of the Field of Private Arbitration
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-2023
Journal Title
Zeitschrift für Konfliktmanagement
ISSN
2194-4210
DOI
10.9785/zkm-2023-260405
Abstract
With significant encouragement from the U.S. Supreme Court, corporations and employers are regularly inserting mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clauses into contracts of adhesion with their consumers and employees. Many of these clauses include class action waivers, and both commentators and consumer advocates have expressed concerns regarding the clauses' potentially chilling effect on employees' and consumers' assertion of claims. In response to these concerns, Congress has recently passed legislation limiting the enforcement of arbitration clauses for claims of sexual assault or harassment while federal regulators have also attempted (not always successfully) to protect consumers. Entrepreneurial plaintiffs' lawyers, meanwhile, have found other ways to weaponize class action-barring arbitration clauses. Not surprisingly, companies and employers have responded with countermeasures.
Last, as dispute resolution service provision has become quite lucrative, there are parties objecting that arbitrators' ownership stake in for-profit dispute resolution firms creates evident partiality.
First Page
126
Last Page
131
Num Pages
6
Volume Number
26
Issue Number
4
Publisher
De Gruyter
Recommended Citation
Nancy A. Welsh,
A Look at America – Part 3 – The Dynamism of the Field of Private Arbitration,
26
Zeitschrift für Konfliktmanagement
126
(2023).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/2193
