The recent discussion of the December 2013 decision by the Ninth Circuit in In re Wal-Mart Wage & Hour Employment Practices Litigation calls to mind the contrast in attitudes between international and domestic practice. Mention “arbitration” among international practitioners and profs, and you are likely to get a bit of a swoon from most – arbitration, properly structured, rescues us from the risks and uncertainties of unfamiliar legal systems and provides a comfort level in terms of predictability of process if not outcome. Mention “arbitration” in domestic circles, particularly with respect to consumer protection issues, and you encounter a growing skepticism if not outright hostility about the imposition of arbitration as an exclusive contract remedy.

There are delicate ironies in these contrasting attitudes. Many would say that the contrast – to the extent it actually exists – simply reflects the difference between complex disputes at the “wholesale” level, between commercial actors with more or less equal bargaining power, and consumer disputes in which arbitration is imposed by the dominant party on the “retail” party. However, In re Wal-Mart itself undermines that neat dichotomy, since it involves parties with, presumably, more or less equal bargaining power. In any event, there is certainly nothing in principle or in text that suggests a wholesale-retail split in the approach to deciding arbitration challenges. (Consider, for example, the Supremes’ 2011 AT & T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, upholding an arbitration provision in a class-action consumer suit, and the Ninth Circuit’s own 2003 en banc decision in  Kyocera Corp. v. Prudential–Bache Trade Servs., Inc., upholding arbitration in what was ostensibly a “wholesale” transaction between commercial parties.) It is nevertheless clear that there is a growing conception – or preconception – that arbitration clauses may be hostile to, or at least incompatible with, consumer interests.

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