By George H. Friedman* As I expected, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) used a “field hearing” on arbitration on May 5th to release news that it will be moving ahead with rulemaking that will ban class action waivers (“CAWs”) in consumer financial arbitration clauses. This was not a hard call. CFPB’s previously-announced intention that…
By George H. Friedman* [The author thanks the Securities Arbitration Commentator for letting him borrow liberally from its Securities Arbitration Alert] Arbitration law practitioners sometimes forget that the Federal Arbitration Act(“FAA”) does not by itself establish independent federal subject matter jurisdiction. In other words, a party seeking access to the federal courts must establish an…
By George H. Friedman* [The author thanks the Securities Arbitration Commentator for letting him borrow liberally from its Securities Arbitration Alert] Much has been written in recent years about the likely demise of mandatory predispute arbitration agreements (“PDAAs”) in the consumer financial context. I should know, I’m one of the authors. But recent events have…
By George H. Friedman* [The author thanks the Securities Arbitration Commentator for letting him borrow liberally from its coverage of the cases below in its weekly Securities Arbitration Alert] Mediation in my eyes has sometimes been treated like the Rodney Dangerfield of the alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) field, not getting the full measure of respect…
Written by *George H. Friedman FINRA’s Office of Dispute Resolution (“ODR”) Director of Arbitration Richard Berry in a March 7 interview with Bloomberg BNA laid out the Office’s key objectives for 2016. FINRA operates the world’s largest dispute resolution forum for securities disputes, administering almost all such cases – 99%. Because dispute resolution changes at the…