See the USA Today story discussing the case at: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2009-07-14-credit-card-arbitration-firm-lawsuit_N.htm
While I don’t necessarily agree that NAF’s potentially problematic financial arrangements impugns the integrity of consumer arbitration generally, I agree that, if proven true, these allegations seriously challenge NAF as an independent, neutral provider of arbitrator services for consumer arbitration. It will be sad if the allegedly questionable actions of one organization have a major impact on the use of consumer arbitration as a whole.
NAF probably has some pretty significant market share. “They control the market to the tune of nearly 99% of consumer credit card contracts.” according to a post here:
http://themoderatevoice.com/20259/business-week-consumer-credit-arbitration-you-lose/
It has 1,600 arbitrators worldwide, and a suit filed in San Francisco in March alleged that the Forum ruled in favor of California consumers in just 30 of 18,075 credit-card cases that were heard before Forum arbitrators between January 2003 and March 2007.
http://www.startribune.com/business/18812529.html
While NAF is not the whole ballgame in consumer arbitration, it is probably the largest provider of it.
If NAF is taken “off the board” it will also create a brief period of political vacuum when there is no one to lobby aggressively for provisions that validate consumer arbitration — something Congress is currently considering banning.