Class Waivers in Consumer Arbitration Agreements

A "class waiver" is a contract clause requiring disputes to be resolved individually rather than in a class action. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to prohibit class waivers in consumer financial services arbitration agreements. Adding fuel to this fire is yet another NY Times article portraying aggressive businesses preying on vulnerable consumers and then depicting the class action as the only practical redress for consumers -- squelched by the dreaded arbitration clause.

The most recent article: "By inserting arbitration clauses into the fine print of consumer contracts, they have found a way to block access to the courts and ban class-action lawsuits, the only realistic way to bring a case against a deep-pocketed corporation."

Supreme Court Rules for DirectTV in Class Arbitration Case

The full text of DIRECTV, INC. v. IMBURGIA ET AL addresses whether a California choice of law clause chose California law on arbitral class waivers over federal law on them.

Commentary on the case by Georgetown Law professor Greg Klass says "all the opinion says is that when a state court is messing around with preempted state law, it should be really, really clear that it understands that in the end federal law always wins"

Arbitration Clauses in Credit Cards Not Antitrust Violation

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the trial court's ruling that the card issuers' "final decision to adopt class-action-barring clauses was something the issuing banks hashed out individually and internally", not collusively.