The Supreme Court may soon be taking on an issue that has divided several of the federal circuit courts. The circuits disagree on a fundamental question that relates to arbitration and labor law - whether an agreement to arbitrate is valid when an employee waives the...
Arbitration
CFPB Proposes Rule That Would Restore Consumer Right To Sue Banks
In AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333 (2011), the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state laws that prohibit consumer contracts from disallowing class-wide arbitration. On May 5, 2016, however, the Federal...
Judge Vacates Major League Baseball Arbitral Award
As this blog has chronicled in the past, it is extremely difficult for an arbitral award to be vacated. The Federal Arbitration Act and many state arbitral acts provide very limited grounds for vacatur, as courts are reluctant to second-guess an arbitrator's decision....
Who Decides the Arbitrability of Class Action Lawsuits?
In a recent case, the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District handed down a decision involving the question of whether the court or the arbitrator decides if a case involving a class action can be arbitrated when the arbitration agreement is...
Federal Circuit Expands Its Appellate Overview in ITC Cases Involving Arbitration
In a closely watched decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently determined that an order of the International Trade Commission ("ITC") terminating an investigation on the basis of an arbitration agreement is an appealable final determination...
Fighting for Silver: The Legal Consequences of Nationalization in Bolivia
Seven years ago this week, one of the most significant chapters in Bolivian history began. With one stroke of the pen on May 1, 2006, then-newly-elected president Evo Morales issued a decree nationalizing all of Bolivia's oil and gas reserves. This was shortly...
Arbitration Rules for Outer Space
The Permanent Court of Arbitration ("PCA"), an intergovernmental body based in The Hague and established by treaty over a century ago to provide international dispute resolution services, has recently issued the first set of rules specifically designed to govern...
How to Keep Your Arbitral Proceedings Confidential
Aside from the flexibility to tailor the process to the particular needs of the case, arbitration also enjoys another major advantage over litigation: The ability to keep the proceedings confidential. Although a party involved in litigation can move to seal the court...
Three Strikes and You’re Out: Using Baseball Arbitration to Resolve International Tax Disputes
As more and more companies conduct business across international borders, questions of tax revenue recognition and transfer pricing taxes become more and more salient. Tax authorities in different nations, fighting over which country gets to tax the multi-national...
Instagram’s New Terms of Service Anger Users
Social media users are fuming over changes in the popular photo-sharing and social networking website Instagram's Terms of Service. The most talked-about change appears to give Instagram the right to sell users' photographs to third parties for use in advertisements:...
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