New California Arbitration Statute on Consumer Arbitration Organizations

Robin E. Largent of the California Labor & Employment Law Blog writes:

in an effort to decrease the attractiveness of arbitration as a forum for dispute resolution, Governor Brown signed into law AB 802, which requires major arbitration providers such as JAMS and AAA to publish at least quarterly on their websites (beginning in January 2015) detailed information concerning arbitrations they have handled, including (1) the name of any non-consumer party involved in the arbitration (i.e. the name of the employer), (2) the nature of the dispute (e.g. employment), (3) where the non-consumer party is an employer, whether the employer was the initiating or responding party, (4) the annual wage (in a range) earned by the involved employee, (5) the amount of the claim, which party prevailed, and the amount of any award, including attorneys’ fees, (6) whether the employee was represented by an attorney and, if so, the name of the attorney and the law firm, (7) the name of the arbitrator and the amount of the arbitrator’s fees, and (8) the total number of times the employer previously has been a party in arbitration or mediation before the dispute resolution provider.  This new law has the obvious (and likely intended) effect of destroying the usual benefit of privacy that arbitration and mediation provide.