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Arbitration
SCOTUS Reaffirms Manifest Disregard of the Agreement Outcome Review Standard and Elaborates on Its Scope
July 31, 2013
On June 10, 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court in Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, No. 12-135, slip op. at 4-5 (U.S. June 10, 2013) (Kagan, J.), unanimously reaffirmed that Section 10(a)(4) of the FAA authorizes courts to vacate awards that are not even arguably based on an interpretation of the parties’ agreement. While the Court broke no new ground, Associate Justice Elena Kagan’s well-written opinion—together with Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito’s opinion in Stolt-Nielsen, S.A. v. AnimalFeeds...
July 31, 2013
On June 10, 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court in Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, No. 12-135, slip op. at 4-5 (U.S. June 10, 2013) (Kagan, J.), unanimously reaffirmed that Section 10(a)(4) of the FAA authorizes courts to vacate awards that are not even arguably based on an interpretation of the parties’ agreement. While the Court broke no new ground, Associate Justice Elena Kagan’s well-written opinion—together with Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito’s opinion in Stolt-Nielsen, S.A. v. AnimalFeeds...
U.S. Supreme Court Considering Petition for Certiorari in Dispute Over How to Define “Arbitration”
July 31, 2013
A petition for certiorari in an arbitration case that was decided earlier this year by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals...
July 31, 2013
A petition for certiorari in an arbitration case that was decided earlier this year by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals...
Number of Civil Jury Trials Conducted in Texas Reaches a 40-Year Low
July 30, 2013
According to a recent report, the number of civil jury trials held each year across the State of Texas has declined to a 40-year...
July 30, 2013
According to a recent report, the number of civil jury trials held each year across the State of Texas has declined to a 40-year...
Negotiating the Reverse Auction in Class Action Cases
July 30, 2013
This story is for you if: You handle wage and hour class action cases; You run into the situation where there are multiple similar actions filed against the same defendant by different plaintiffs. Settling class action cases is typically a distributive negotiation where there is a fixed pie that gets divided up. While there is some room for creativity, for the most part it is a zero sum game in which a litigant’s gain (or loss) is balanced by the losses (or gains) of the other litigants....
July 30, 2013
This story is for you if: You handle wage and hour class action cases; You run into the situation where there are multiple similar actions filed against the same defendant by different plaintiffs. Settling class action cases is typically a distributive negotiation where there is a fixed pie that gets divided up. While there is some room for creativity, for the most part it is a zero sum game in which a litigant’s gain (or loss) is balanced by the losses (or gains) of the other litigants....
Small Business B-2-B Arbitration Part II.A: The Nature and Purpose of Arbitration
July 30, 2013
The long- and short-term success of a business is generally measured by the economic benefits it produces for its investors. Most business decisions require a business to accept risks of varying severity and frequency if the business is going to realize a meaningful return on investment. All else being equal, to increase the likelihood that those decisions will yield profits, the business must accurately assess all material risks, their corresponding benefits and the interplay between the two. The...
July 30, 2013
The long- and short-term success of a business is generally measured by the economic benefits it produces for its investors. Most business decisions require a business to accept risks of varying severity and frequency if the business is going to realize a meaningful return on investment. All else being equal, to increase the likelihood that those decisions will yield profits, the business must accurately assess all material risks, their corresponding benefits and the interplay between the two. The...
Eleventh Circuit Applies Sutter to Affirm Class Arbitration; Ninth Circuit Applies Concepcion To Preempt Montana Law
July 29, 2013
Within weeks of its issuance, SCOTUS’s Sutter decision is already making an impact on other cases. Both the Eleventh Circuit and the D.C. Court of Appeals citeSutter repeatedly in recent decisions that refuse to vacate arbitration awards. Of course, new decisions are not the only ones that reverberate: Concepcion, a 2011 decision, was just applied by the Ninth Circuit to preempt Montana case law on contracts of adhesion. Sutter In Southern Commc’n Servs., Inc. v. Thomas, __ F.3d...
July 29, 2013
Within weeks of its issuance, SCOTUS’s Sutter decision is already making an impact on other cases. Both the Eleventh Circuit and the D.C. Court of Appeals citeSutter repeatedly in recent decisions that refuse to vacate arbitration awards. Of course, new decisions are not the only ones that reverberate: Concepcion, a 2011 decision, was just applied by the Ninth Circuit to preempt Montana case law on contracts of adhesion. Sutter In Southern Commc’n Servs., Inc. v. Thomas, __ F.3d...
Arbitration Arithmetic
July 29, 2013
For years, Texas lawyers have tried every tactic imaginable to convince the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that binding arbitration should not resolve their clients' fates, with little success. But John Crouch is adding a new argument to the debate: statistics.
July 29, 2013
For years, Texas lawyers have tried every tactic imaginable to convince the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that binding arbitration should not resolve their clients' fates, with little success. But John Crouch is adding a new argument to the debate: statistics.
Conflict Resolution in Sport
July 29, 2013
A particularly insightful presentation on the use of mediation in sports was offered at last month’s World Mediation Forum in Prague. Ozlem Susler from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia (whom Forum co-President Colin Wall called “Oz from Oz”) moderated the presentation. She noted that sports is a substantial economic driver on a global scale. Soccer alone represents 43% of the global sports economic activity. Common disputes include trademark and intellectual property, broadcast...
July 29, 2013
A particularly insightful presentation on the use of mediation in sports was offered at last month’s World Mediation Forum in Prague. Ozlem Susler from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia (whom Forum co-President Colin Wall called “Oz from Oz”) moderated the presentation. She noted that sports is a substantial economic driver on a global scale. Soccer alone represents 43% of the global sports economic activity. Common disputes include trademark and intellectual property, broadcast...
FAA Pre-Emption of State Law Limits on Arbitration: The Ninth Circuit Grapples with Concepcion
July 29, 2013
In the Concepcion case in 2011 [AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 131 S.Ct. 1740], five Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States agreed that the FAA pre-empts a rule of state law that makes an arbitration agreement unconscionable if the agreement prohibits class arbitration. The actual implications of Concepcion for class arbitration remain murky, as the Supreme Court’s other recent decisions relating to class arbitration have been context-specific. Thus in Stolt-Nielsen the Court’s...
July 29, 2013
In the Concepcion case in 2011 [AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 131 S.Ct. 1740], five Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States agreed that the FAA pre-empts a rule of state law that makes an arbitration agreement unconscionable if the agreement prohibits class arbitration. The actual implications of Concepcion for class arbitration remain murky, as the Supreme Court’s other recent decisions relating to class arbitration have been context-specific. Thus in Stolt-Nielsen the Court’s...
Texas Supreme Court Issues Emergency Stay to Consider Arbitration
July 26, 2013
Last week, the Texas Supreme Court issued a stay in an interlocutory appeal regarding whether an ongoing natural gas dispute...
July 26, 2013
Last week, the Texas Supreme Court issued a stay in an interlocutory appeal regarding whether an ongoing natural gas dispute...
