This week, Time Magazine had a great article on haggling during the recession. (Thanks to Jerry Olivo for sending this along.) Although apparently we don’t usually negotiate retail items, the recession has encouraged plenty of shoppers to dust off those negotiation skills and try to negotiate items that are typically not open for discussion. Think you … Continue reading Recession Haggling
The Pace Law School Investor Rights Clinic, pursuant to a generous grant from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, has just published the Investor’s Guide to Securities Industry Disputes: How to Prevent and Resolve Disputes with Your Broker. This Guide, which I co-authored with Clinic Staff Attorney Alice Oshins, is designed to help individual investors with modest investment accounts … Continue reading Investor’s Guide to Securities Industry Disputes
As everyone who follows the news of the day knows, there was a little dust-up in Cambridge, Mass. last week. (If you need a primer to catch up, go here). President Obama is scheduled today to meet and have a beer with Cambridge Police Officer, Sgt. James Crowley and Harvard faculty member Henry Louis Gates, … Continue reading President Obama – Mediator in Chief
Here’s another comment, this one by Cliff Palefsky, a San Francisco lawyer with a substantial arbitration practice. Regulation is the price you pay for the elimination of true consent. As the National Academy [of Arbitrators] said, “without volunariness, arbitration lacks moral and legal justification.” Statistics in the end are meaningless. Anyone who truly loves the … Continue reading NAF Commentary – Part II
Several people who are interested in the NAF settlement (see here) and the recent commentary to a Congressional Committee (see here) have been discussing these things in an interesting an email exchange. I’ve asked permission to put a few comments up here on the blog, and will see if I can’t get permission for more. … Continue reading Commentary on the NAF Lawsuit
Lots to chew on coming out of Washington, D.C. in recent days. Paul Bland (Public Justice) and Professor Chris Drahozal (Kansas) provided testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, along with representatives of NAF and AAA. Their prepared testimony is available here. The Staff Report is here. Rep. … Continue reading Materials from Congressional Hearings on Arbitration
Citing the Wall Street Journal, WorkplaceProfBlog just reported here that the American Arbitration Association has withdrawn from consumer debt collection arbitration. I have not found AAA’s statement on the decision, and I have no idea how this affects existing claims. Some have guessed that “smoking gun evidence” led to the NAF decision to withdraw. I … Continue reading AAA Joins NAF in Stepping Away from Credit Card Arbitration
Business Week reported yesterday that NAF will no longer do consumer card arbitration, and if I’m reading the article correctly, will no longer do any of a range of other consumer arbitrations. A settlement of the Minnesota Attorney General’s claim against NAF, this could shake up arbitration from a provider side, just as Congress has … Continue reading NAF Announcement — Out of Consumer Arbitration
The Minnesota AG’s complaint is here, and the NAF’s response from its website is here. Under Minnesota’s state rules of civil procedure, which I’m pretty sure parallel the FRCP on these matters, we’ll probably have a chance to see NAF’s answer relatively soon. Michael Moffitt
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 … Continue reading USA Today has story on lawsuit against NAF
